Libyan prosecutors say they are investigating the killing of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the country’s long-time leader Col Muammar Gaddafi.
The 53-year-old, who was once widely seen as his father’s heir apparent, was killed during a “direct confrontation” with four unknown gunmen who broke into his home in the city of Zintan, his office said in a statement.
“The victim died from wounds by gunfire,” Libyan prosecutors said on Wednesday, adding that efforts were under way to identify the gunmen.
In a different version of events, his sister told Libyan TV that he had died near the country’s border with Algeria.
Saif al-Islam’s lawyer told the AFP news agency a “four-man commando” unit carried out an assassination at his home in the city of Zintan, though it was not clear who may have been behind the attack.
The public prosecutor’s office said forensic experts had been dispatched to Zintan in north-west Libya to conduct investigations.
Saif al-Islam was long seen as the most influential and feared figure in the country after his father, who ruled Libya from 1969 until being ousted and killed during an uprising in 2011.
BBC World Affairs editor John Simpson, who had met Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, said that he was “a strange, mercurial figure, but he was much less eccentric than his father”.
“During the 2011 revolution, he agreed to be interviewed for the BBC, only to scream insults at me in front of his officials,” Simpson said.
“Then he sent them away, and apologised profusely. ‘They expect it of me,’ he said.”
Source: BBC
