Authorities investigating killing of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, as soon as seen as de-facto PM underneath father’s iron-fisted rule.
Printed On 6 Feb 2026
1000’s of individuals have attended the funeral of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the late Libyan chief Muammar Gaddafi’s most outstanding son, who was shot lifeless this week.
The burial came about on Friday within the city of Bani Walid, some 175 kilometres (110 miles) south of Tripoli.
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Practically 15 years after the elder Gaddafi was toppled and killed in a 2011 NATO-backed rebellion, hundreds of loyalists turned as much as mourn his son, who was as soon as seen as the previous chief’s inheritor obvious.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was killed on Tuesday in his house within the northwestern metropolis of Zintan. His workplace mentioned in an announcement that he had been killed throughout a “direct confrontation” with 4 unknown gunmen who broke into his house.
The workplace of Libya’s attorney general mentioned investigators and forensic docs examined the 53-year-old’s physique and decided that he died from gunshot wounds and that the workplace was working to establish suspects.
“We’re right here to accompany our beloved one, the son of our chief in whom we positioned our hope and our future,” mentioned Waad Ibrahim, a 33-year-old lady from Sirte, practically 300km (186 miles) away from Bani Walid.
Divided nation
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was as soon as described because the de facto prime minister underneath his father’s iron-fisted 40-year rule, cultivating a picture of moderation and reform regardless of holding no official place.
Championing himself as a reformer, he led talks on Libya abandoning its weapons of mass destruction and negotiated compensation for the households of these killed within the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988.
However that fame quickly collapsed when he promised “rivers of blood” in response to the 2011 rebellion, which led to his arrest that yr on a warrant issued by the Worldwide Legal Court docket for alleged crimes in opposition to humanity.
In 2021, he introduced he would run for president, however the elections aiming to unify the divided nation underneath a United Nations settlement had been indefinitely postponed.
At this time, Libya stays break up between Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah’s UN-backed authorities based mostly in Tripoli and an jap administration backed by Khalifa Haftar.
The killing of Gaddafi, seen by many as an alternative to the nation’s energy duopoly, occurred lower than every week after a reported January 28 assembly in France’s Elysee Palace, which introduced collectively Haftar’s son and advisers to Dbeibah.
