Libya Opens Investigation Into Killing Of Gaddafi’s Son

Libyan prosecutors have opened an investigation into the killing of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, following conflicting accounts surrounding his death.

According to the public prosecutor’s office, the 53-year-old was killed during a “direct confrontation” with four unidentified gunmen who reportedly broke into his home in the city of Zintan, north-west Libya. Authorities confirmed that he died after sustaining gunshot wounds and said efforts were ongoing to identify and track down those responsible.

“The victim died from wounds by gunfire,” Libyan prosecutors said on Wednesday.
However, an alternative version of events emerged after Saif al-Islam’s sister told Libyan television that he had died near the country’s border with Algeria, adding to uncertainty around the circumstances of the killing.

Saif al-Islam’s lawyer told the AFP news agency that a “four-man commando” unit carried out what he described as a targeted assassination at his home in Zintan. The motive behind the attack and the identities of those involved remain unclear.

The public prosecutor’s office said forensic specialists had been dispatched to Zintan to examine the scene and gather evidence as part of the investigation.
Long regarded as one of the most influential figures in Libya after his father, Saif al-Islam was widely viewed as Muammar Gaddafi’s potential successor before the regime collapsed in 2011.

BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson, who met Saif al-Islam in the past, described him as “a strange, mercurial figure, but he was much less eccentric than his father.”

Recalling an interview during the 2011 uprising, Simpson said:
“During the 2011 revolution, he agreed to be interviewed for the BBC, only to scream insults at me in front of his officials.
Then he sent them away, and apologised profusely. ‘They expect it of me,’ he said.”

Libyan journalist and writer Abdulkader Assad suggested that Saif al-Islam may have been targeted by local actors who felt threatened by his political influence.
“It could also be foreign actors took him out because of his controversial past,” Abdulkader told the BBC’s Newsday programme.

Born in 1972, Saif al-Islam played a central role in Libya’s re-engagement with Western countries from 2000 until the fall of his father’s government. Despite holding no official post, he helped shape policy and led high-profile negotiations, including those that saw Libya abandon its nuclear weapons programme and secure the lifting of international sanctions.

After Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and killed in 2011, Saif al-Islam was captured and held for nearly six years by a militia in Zintan. He was accused of playing a major role in the violent suppression of anti-government protests.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) sought to prosecute him for crimes against humanity related to the 2011 uprising. In 2015, a court in Tripoli sentenced him to death in absentia. However, he was later released by a militia in eastern Libya under an amnesty law.

John Simpson, who attended his trial in Zintan, recalled:
“In the courtroom he greeted me and my television crew with relief, maybe thinking that our presence would save him from execution.”
Simpson added that while Saif al-Islam relied heavily on his personal charm and negotiating skills to secure his freedom, resentment toward his father extended to him as well.

“The loathing many Libyans felt for his father extended to him, and may have brought about his death.”

Since the fall of the Gaddafi regime, Libya has remained deeply divided, with rival governments and powerful militias controlling different parts of the country. Although Saif al-Islam had previously denied ambitions to inherit power saying leadership was “not a farm to inherit” he announced plans to run for president in 2021. Those elections were later postponed indefinitely.
As investigations continue, his killing has once again highlighted Libya’s fragile security situation and the unresolved legacy of the Gaddafi era.