Late Libyan Leader Muammar Gaddafi’s Remains to Be Handed to His Tribe for Reburial, Report Says

The remains of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi will be handed over to members of his tribe in Sirte for reburial, Saudi Arabia-based news channel AlHadath reports.

According to the channel’s Libyan sources, the transfer of Gaddafi’s remains was agreed by senior officials in the city of Misrata, and elders of the al-Gaddaf and al-Mujabar tribes. Along with Gaddafi senior, the remains of his 36-year-old son Moatassem-Billah Gaddafi, and Abu-Bakr Yunis Jabr, one of the late Libyan leader’s most trusted advisors, are also expected to be transferred. The two men were killed alongside Gaddafi on 20 October 2011 following the battle of Sirte, with evidence circulating that rebels tortured them and mutilated their bodies as well.

After Gaddafi was killed, his body was taken to Misrata ‘for a medical examination’, and then put on public display at a local shopping center. He was buried at an unknown location in the desert, despite promises by militants to return his remains to his family.

Last week, Libyan militia leader Salah Badi announced that he was prepared to disclose the location of Gaddafi’s burial site amid calls by supporters of the late Libyan leader to hand his remains over to tribesmen for the sake of intra-Libyan reconciliation.

Gaddafi’s Son Released From Prison

On Sunday, Libyan authorities released Saadi Gaddafi, Gaddafi senior’s third son, from jail and flew him out of the country to Turkey.  The younger Gaddafi’s current whereabouts are unknown. According to sources speaking to Reuters, Saadi Gaddafi’s release was secured after negotiations between tribal figures and interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh. A retired professional football player by trade, Saadi Gaddafi served as a commander of Libya’s special forces during the 2011 war, and fled the country to Niger before the country fell to the the rebels.

An Interpol red notice was issued for him the same year, and in 2014, Saadi was extradited to Tripoli – the capital of one of the two governments vying for power over the country. After his return, he was imprisoned, tortured and charged with the 2005 suspected murder of football player and coach Bashir al-Riani. He was found not guilty in 2018, but remained imprisoned.

Commenting on Saadi Gaddafi’s release, Interim Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh stressed that the country “cannot move forward without implementing reconciliation, or establish a state without implementing justice, enforcing the law, respecting the principle of separation of powers and following judicial procedures and rulings.”

Presidential Run

Last week, Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, Gaddafi’s second son, was reported to have officially decided to run in the upcoming Libyan general elections, which are set for 24 December. Saif reportedly plans to run from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Libya, a Gaddafi loyalist political party created in 2016. The party’s platform includes cleansing the country of terrorists, reconstruction from the war, and following the tenets laid out in his father’s Green Book –a mixture of socialism, Arab nationalism, and a system of direct democracy based on referendums.

Fragile Peace

The Libyan national Army and the Government of National Accord, two competing regimes governing the eastern and western halves of the country, reached an agreement in October 2020 to establish a permanent ceasefire across the country. The agreement gave foreign fighters three months to leave the war-torn nation, and an interim unity government was formed in March of 2021, to be replaced by the government which will be created after the December 2021 elections. Along with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army and former Gaddafi loyalist-turned rebel general, has expressed public interest in running. Aref Ali Nayed, a former ambassador to the United Arab Emirates from the self-proclaimed eastern Libyan government, is also reportedly considering a run.

In February, Libyans marked the tenth anniversary of the Libyan ‘Revolution’ – a series of uprisings as part of the broader ‘Arab Spring’ which culminated in a NATO air campaign and the country’s division disintegration into a failed state. The country sank from its status as Africa’s most prosperous and developed nation into a divided and impoverished nation containing open air slave markets, and serving as a transfer point for hundreds of thousands of immigrants and refugees seeking to make their way to Europe.

In October 2011, after being informed during an interview that Gaddafi had been killed, then-US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton jubilantly announced “We came, we saw, he died.”