ZINTAN : Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the most prominent son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has been killed in Libya, his lawyer, political adviser and local media said on Tuesday.
Saif al-Islam, 53, was killed when armed men attacked his home in the town of Zintan, about 136 km (85 miles) southwest of Tripoli, according to Libyan outlet Fawasel Media.
His lawyer, Khaled al-Zaidi, and political adviser Abdulla Othman announced his death in separate Facebook posts, without giving further details. Fawasel Media quoted Othman as saying that gunmen killed Gaddafi inside his residence.
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In a later statement, Gaddafi’s political team said four masked men stormed the house and shot him dead in what it described as a “cowardly and treacherous assassination”. The statement said he confronted the assailants, who shut down the home’s security cameras in an attempt to conceal evidence.
Khaled al-Mishri, former head of Libya’s Tripoli-based High State Council, called for an “urgent and transparent investigation” into the killing in a social media post.
Although Saif al-Islam never held an official position, he was widely seen as his father’s heir from around 2000 until 2011, when Muammar Gaddafi was killed by opposition forces during the uprising that ended his four-decade rule.
Saif al-Islam was captured in Zintan in 2011 while trying to flee Libya after the fall of Tripoli. He was released in 2017 under a general amnesty and had been living in Zintan since.
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