Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, was assassinated at his home in the northwestern Libyan city of Zintan, the head of his political team said on Tuesday. He is 53 years old.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, once seen as the heir apparent to his dictator father – who was executed after his regime was ousted in 2011 at the height of the Arab Spring protests – has been seeking a return to Libyan politics in recent years.
Four masked assailants stormed into the residence of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, destroyed security cameras and then shot him dead in a “treacherous and cowardly” attack, his political adviser Abdullah Osman said in a statement on social media.
Libyan authorities have yet to issue a formal confirmation, and there was no immediate comment from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has long sought Gaddafi’s arrest on charges of crimes against humanity.
Saif al-Islam Gadhafi was born in Tripoli, the capital of Libya, on June 25, 1972. He is the second son of Moammar Gadhafi. Gaddafi ruled Libya from 1969 until his overthrow and death in 2011.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi speaks fluent English and was educated overseas, including at the London School of Economics. He is widely seen as more progressive than his father, who ruled Libya with an iron fist for decades.
But on February 21, 2011, as protests spread across Libya, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi gave a televised speech warning that if the rebellion continued, it would lead to civil war, chaos and poverty. The speech marked a decisive break with his reformist image and an open endorsement of the regime’s violent crackdown on demonstrators.
In June 2011, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Seif al-Islam Gaddafi and his father for crimes against humanity during the counterinsurgency.
After the fall of Tripoli, Saif al-Islam Gadhafi evaded capture for months before being detained by militias in the western Libyan city of Zintan in November 2011.
He was held there until June 2017, when the militias announced his release under a controversial amnesty law passed by Libya’s House of Representatives.
In November 2021, he reappeared on the political stage, registering as a candidate for Libya’s long-delayed presidential elections.
His candidacy has sparked sharp divisions, with supporters portraying him as a symbol of stability and opponents denouncing him as a reminder of dictatorship and unsolved war crimes. The election was later postponed indefinitely due to political deadlock and security concerns.
Before his death, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi had longed to one day return to political life and had begun working on “a reconciliation proposal” in recent months, a source close to him told CNN.
In a statement on Tuesday, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi’s team urged the Libyan judiciary, the international community, the United Nations and human rights groups to conduct independent, transparent investigations to identify and prosecute those responsible.
CNN’s Matog Saleh contributed to this report.
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