Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has been assassinated, a source close to the family confirmed to RT on Tuesday.
He was killed by four people “who quickly fled the scene after shooting him in his garden,” a family source told Al Arabiya. According to media reports, for the last several years Gaddafi had been living in hiding in Libya.
In 2015, a Libyan court sentenced Saif al-Islam to death for his role in the crackdown on protests during the 2011 unrest that led to the downfall of his father’s government. The International Criminal Court separately charged him with crimes against humanity. Saif al-Islam was released in 2017 as part of a general amnesty.
In 2021, he registered as a candidate for the presidential election scheduled for December, but the vote ultimately collapsed amid political deadlock.
Muammar Gaddafi seized power in a 1969 coup and ruled the oil-rich country until his killing in 2011 by insurgents backed by a US-led military intervention.
Libya has since experienced intermittent civil war and remains divided between rival governments in the west and east. Presidential and parliamentary elections have repeatedly been postponed as political tensions persist.
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