Gaddafi was considered Libya’s second-most powerful person before his father’s 2011 death
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the most prominent son of Libya’s former leader Muammar Gaddafi, has been killed in the country, according to officials and local media reports.
His death was confirmed on Tuesday by his lawyer, Khaled al-Zaidi, and his political adviser, Abdulla Othman, who announced the development in separate Facebook posts without disclosing further details.
Libyan news outlet Fawasel Media quoted Othman as saying that armed men attacked and killed the 53-year-old at his residence in Zintan, a town located about 136 kilometres (85 miles) southwest of Tripoli.
The report said the assailants carried out the attack at his home, sparking fresh concerns over security in the region.
In a later statement, Gaddafi’s political team described the killing as a “cowardly and treacherous assassination,” alleging that “four masked men” stormed his house. The statement added that he resisted the attackers and that they shut down the home’s security cameras “in a desperate attempt to conceal traces of their heinous crimes.”
Reacting to the incident, Khaled al-Mishri, former head of the Tripoli-based High State Council, called for an “urgent and transparent investigation” into the killing in a social media post. Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who never held official office but was long seen as his father’s heir apparent, was captured in Zintan in 2011, released under a general pardon in 2017, and had continued to live in the town until his death.
