Cairo– Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, son and one-time successor of Libyan officials, said Tuesday that late dictator Moammar Gaddafi has been killed in the North African country.
53-year-old He was killed in the city of Zintan, 136 kilometres (85 miles) southwest of the capital Tripoli, according to Libya’s chief prosecutor’s office.
The office said in a statement that a preliminary investigation found that Saif al-Islam was shot to death but did not provide further details about the circumstances of his killing.
Seif al-Islam’s lawyer, Khalid al-Zaidi, confirmed his death on Facebook without providing details.
Abdullah Othman Abdurrahim, who represented Gaddafi in U.N.-brokered political talks aimed at resolving Libya’s long-running conflict, also announced the death on Facebook.
Seif al-Islam’s political team later issued a statement saying that “four masked men” attacked his home and murdered him in a “cowardly and treacherous murder”. The statement said he confronted the attackers, who switched off the house’s CCTV cameras “in a desperate attempt to hide traces of their heinous crimes”.
, he was seen as the reformist face of the Gaddafi regime.
Born in Tripoli in June 1972, Seif al-Islam was the second-born son of the long-time dictator. He has a Ph.D. in studies. At the London School of Economics, he was seen as the reformist face of the Gaddafi regime.
Moammar Gaddafi was ousted in a NATO-backed popular revolt in 2011 after being in power for more than 40 years. He was killed in amid fighting that turned into civil war in October 2011. The country has since plunged into chaos and is divided between rival armed groups and militias.
Seif al-Islam was captured by fighters in Zintan in late 2011 while trying to flee to neighbouring Niger. The fighters released him in June 2017 after one of Libya’s rival governments granted him amnesty. He has lived in Zintan since then.
A Libyan court convicted him of inciting violence and killing protesters and sentenced him to death in absentia in 2015. He is also wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity. 2011 rebellion.
In November 2021, Seif al-Islam announced his candidacy in the country’s presidential election in a controversial move that was met with outrage from anti-Gaddafi political forces in western and eastern Libya.
Higher National Election Committee of the country disqualified him But the election was not held due to disputes between rival administrations and armed groups that have ruled Libya since the bloody ouster of Moammar Gaddafi.
