Libyan officials have issued arrest orders for three individuals suspected of being involved in the assassination of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi last month, the public prosecutor’s office announced Thursday.
Investigators say they have identified three suspects and claim to know the time and location of the killing, though no additional information has been released.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was killed on February 3 in the northwestern city of Zintan.
Authorities reported that preliminary findings indicate he was shot, but further details were not provided. His political team later stated that “four masked men” broke into his residence, disabled security cameras, and carried out what they called a “cowardly and treacherous assassination.”
The late Gaddafi, son of Libya’s former leader Muammar Gaddafi, had been regarded as a reform-minded figure within his father’s regime.
Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and killed in 2011 during a NATO-backed uprising, and Saif al-Islam was captured shortly thereafter.
He was freed in 2017 and had since resided in Zintan, despite having been sentenced to death by a court in eastern Libya.
Since the outbreak of civil conflict, Libya has remained divided between rival administrations in the east and west.
Officials in Zintan had refused to surrender him, and among his supporters, he came to represent reconciliation and national unity.
Saif al-Islam had declared his intention to run for the presidency in 2021 but was barred from participating. Efforts to hold national elections under a UN-backed agreement have been indefinitely postponed.