TRIPOLI: Saif al Islam, the most prominent son of the late Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi, was shot dead at his home on Tuesday.

Abdullah Othman Abdul Rahim, a relative, told a TV channel that Saif al Islam was killed in his house by a group of four unidentified men.

“Four armed men stormed the residence of Saif al Islam Qadhafi after disabling surveillance cameras, then executed him,” Abdul Rahim said.

While Saif al Islam was well known in the north African country, especially for his role in shaping policy during his father’s rule, his public profile receded in recent years.

In 2015, a Libyan court passed a death sentence in absentia on Saif al Islam for suppressing peaceful protests during the country’s 2011 revolution that ended his father’s rule.

He was also provisionally charged by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity.

In 2021, Saif al Islam registered as a presidential candidate for a December vote that eventually collapsed amid a political deadlock.

Saif went from being his father’s heir apparent to a decade of captivity and obscurity in a remote hill town before launching a presidential bid that helped derail the attempted election in 2021.

Despite holding no official position, he was once seen as the most powerful figure after his father, who ruled for more than four decades.

He led talks on Libya abandoning its weapons of mass destruction and negotiated compensation for the families of those killed in the bombing of a Pan Am plane over Scotland in 1988.

Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2026