Muammar Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam killed by 4 masked men in Libya

JAKARTA - The son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, was killed in his home in Libya.

Al Jazeera reported Wednesday, January 4, the victim's political team said masked men killed Gaddafi at his home in the city of Zintan, about 136 km southwest of the Libyan capital, Tripoli.

"Four masked men stormed his house [Saif] and killed him in a cowardly and despicable murder," said a statement from Gaddafi's political team.

Gaddafi's lawyer, Khaled al-Zaidi, and his political adviser, Abdulla Othman, announced the death of the 53-year-old man in separate posts on Facebook on Tuesday local time. However, the two did not provide further details.

Still in the statement, Gaddafi was mentioned as having fought against four masked people who turned off the CCTV while committing the murder.

Khaled al-Mishri, former head of the Tripoli-based High State Council, an internationally recognized government body, called for an "urgent and transparent investigation" into the killing in a social media post.

Gaddafi never held an official position in Libya, but was considered his father's number two from 2000 to 2011, when Muammar Gaddafi was killed by Libyan opposition forces ending his decades-long rule.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was later arrested and imprisoned in Zintan in 2011 after trying to flee the North African country after Tripoli was taken over by the opposition.

Gaddafi was freed in 2017 as part of a general amnesty and has lived in Zintan since then.