Thousands of Libyans gather for the funeral of Gaddafi’s son who was shot and killed this week

Thousands converged on Friday in northwestern Libya for the funeral of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, the son and one-time heir apparent of Libya’s late leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed earlier this week when four masked assailants stormed into his home and fatally shot him.

Mourners carried his coffin in the town of Bani Walid, 146 kilometers (91 miles) southeast of the capital, Tripoli, as well as large photographs of both Saif al-Islam, who was known mostly by his first name, and his father.

The crowd also waved plain green flags, Libya's official flag from 1977 to 2011 under Gaddafi, who ruled the country for more than 40 years before being toppled in a NATO-backed popular uprising in 2011. Gadhafi was killed later that year in his hometown of Sirte as fighting in Libya escalated into a full-blown civil war.

As the funeral procession got underway and the crowds swelled, a small group of supporters took Seif al-Islam's coffin away and later performed the funeral prayers and buried him.

Attackers at his home

Saif al-Islam, 53, was killed on Tuesday inside his home in the town of Zintan, 136 kilometers (85 miles) southwest of the capital, Tripoli, according to Libyan’s chief prosecutor’s office.

Authorities said an initial investigation found that he was shot to death but did not provide further details. Seif al-Islam’s political team later released a statement saying “four masked men” had stormed his house and killed him in a “cowardly and treacherous assassination,” after disabling security cameras.

Seif al-Islam was captured by fighters in Zintan late in 2011 while trying to flee to neighboring Niger. The fighters released him in June 2017, after one of Libya’s rival governments granted him amnesty.

“The pain of loss weighs heavily on my heart, and it intensifies because I can’t bid him farewell from within my homeland — a pain that words can’t ease," Seif al-Islam's brother Mohamed Gaddafi, who lives in exile outside Libya though his current whereabouts are unknown, wrote on Facebook on Friday.

"But my solace lies in the fact that the loyal sons of the nation are fulfilling their duty and will give him a farewell befitting his stature,” the brother wrote.

Since the uprising that toppled Gaddafi, Libya plunged into chaos during which the oil-rich North African country split, with rival administrations now in the east and west, backed by various armed groups and foreign governments.

Gadhafi's heir-apparent

Seif al-Islam was Gaddafi’s second-born son and was seen as the reformist face of the Gaddafi regime — someone with diplomatic outreach who had worked to improve Libya’s relations with Western countries up until the 2011 uprising.

The United Nations imposed sanctions on Seif al-Islam that included a travel ban and an assets freeze for his inflammatory public statements encouraging violence against anti-Gaddafi protesters during the 2011 uprising. The International Criminal Court later charged him with crimes against humanity related to the 2011 uprising.

In July 2021, Seif al-Islam told the New York Times that he’s considering returning to Libya's political scene after a decade of absence during which he observed Middle East politics and reportedly reorganized his father’s political supporters.

He condemned the country's new leaders. "There’s no life here. Go to the gas station — there’s no diesel,″ Seif al-Islam told the Times.

In November 2021, he announced his candidacy in the country’s presidential election in a controversial move that was met with outcry from anti-Gadhafi political forces in western and eastern Libya.

The country’s High National Elections Committee disqualified him, but the election wasn’t held over disputes between rival administrations and armed groups.