Saif al-Islam, son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has been killed in the west of the North African country.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the most prominent son of slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has been killed in the country’s western city of Zintan.

Saif al-Islam, who was 53 when he was killed, was Gaddafi’s second son and had been based in Zintan since 2011 – first in prison, and then, after 2017, as a free man, plotting a return to politics.

Figures close to him, including his political adviser, Abdullah Othman, and his lawyer, Khaled el-Zaydi, confirmed his death on Tuesday.

A statement from his political team said he was assassinated by “four masked men” who broke into his house in Zintan.

Saif al-Islam had been seen by many before the 2011 uprising as his father’s heir-apparent and the second-most powerful man in Libya.

He remained prominent throughout the violence that gripped Libya in the wake of the Arab Spring protests, which led to a civil war.

There were numerous allegations against him of torture and extreme violence against opponents of his father’s rule.

By February 2011, he was on a United Nations sanctions list and was banned from travelling.

In March 2011, NATO began bombing Libya after the UN authorised “all necessary measures” to protect civilians from Gaddafi’s forces in the civil war.

In June 2011, Saif al-Islam announced that his father was willing to hold elections and to step down if he did not win them.

However, NATO rejected the offer, and the bombardment of Libya continued.

By the end of June, the International Criminal Court (ICC) had issued an arrest warrant against Saif al-Islam, but he remained at large until after the death of his father and his brother, Mutassim, in Sirte, on October 20, 2011.

Prison Following long negotiations with the ICC, which had been calling for his extradition, Libyan officials were granted the authority to try Saif al-Islam in Libya for war crimes committed during the 2011 uprising.

At the time, Saif al-Islam’s defence lawyers feared that a trial in Libya would not be motivated by justice, but a desire for revenge.

The UN estimated that up to 15,000 people were killed in the conflict, while Libya’s National Transitional Council placed the figure as high as 30,000.

In 2014, Saif al-Islam appeared via videolink in the Tripoli court where his trial was held, as he was imprisoned in Zintan at the time.

In July 2015, the Tripoli court sentenced him to death in absentia.

However, in 2017, he was released by the Abu Bakr as-Siddiq Battalion, a militia that controlled Zintan, as part of an amnesty issued by Libya’s eastern authorities, which are not recognised internationally.

But he did not re-emerge publicly for years, and continued to be wanted by the ICC.

In July 2021, Saif al-Islam gave a rare interview to The New York Times, in which he accused authorities in Libya of being “afraid of … elections”.

Explaining his underground persona, he said he had “been away from the Libyan people for 10 years”.

“You need to come back slowly, slowly.

Like

a striptease,” he added.

He went on to make his first public appearance in years in November 2021, in the city of Sebha, where he filed to run for the Libyan presidency in an attempt to resurrect the ambitions of his father’s former supporters.

Initially banned from taking part, he was later reinstated, but the election did not take place as a result of Libya’s tumultuous political situation, with two rival administrations vying for power.

‘Progressive’ face A Western-educated and well-spoken man, Saif al-Islam presented a progressive face to the oppressive Libyan government.

He received a PhD from the London School of Economics in 2008.

His dissertation dealt with the role of civil society in reforming global governance.

He was prominent in his calls for political reform, and was extremely visible and active in the drive to repair Libya’s relations with the West between the year 2000 and the start of the 2011 uprising.

The London School of Economics was later condemned for having sought a relationship with the Libyan regime, namely for accepting Saif al-Islam as a student, who had signed an agreement for a $2.

4m gift from the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation on the day of his doctorate ceremony.

As an internationally prominent negotiator and influencer, Saif al-Islam could claim a number of victories and prominent roles.

He played a pivotal role in the nuclear negotiations with Western powers, including the United States and the UK.

He was also prominent when negotiating compensation for families of victims of the Lockerbie bombing, the Berlin nightclub attack, and the UTA Flight 772, which detonated over the Sahara Desert.

And he mediated the release of six medics – five of whom were Bulgarian – who were accused of infecting children with HIV in Libya in the late 1990s.

The medics were imprisoned for eight years in 1999 and, upon their release, announced that they had been tortured while in detention.

He had several other proposals, including “Isratine”, a proposal for a permanent resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict through a secular one-state solution.

He also hosted peace talks between the Philippine government and leaders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which resulted in a peace agreement that was signed in 2001

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