Saif al-Arab Gaddafi ( ar, سيف العرب القذافي, ''lit. Sword of the Arabs; of the
Gaddafa''; 1982 – 30 April 2011) was the sixth son of former Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi.
From around 2006 to 2010, Saif al-Arab spent much of his time in
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
. On 30 April 2011, the Libyan government reported that Saif al-Arab and three of his young nieces and nephews were killed by a
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
airstrike on his house during the
Libyan Civil War
Demographics of Libya is the demography of Libya, specifically covering population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, and religious affiliations, as well as other aspects of the Libyan population. The ...
.
During the beginning of the uprising, Saif al-Arab was put in charge of military forces by his father in order to put down protesters in
Benghazi.
Saif al-Arab was viewed as the most low-profile of Gaddafi's eight children.
Early life
Saif al-Arab was born in 1982 in the Libyan capital of
Tripoli
Tripoli or Tripolis may refer to:
Cities and other geographic units Greece
*Tripoli, Greece, the capital of Arcadia, Greece
* Tripolis (region of Arcadia), a district in ancient Arcadia, Greece
* Tripolis (Larisaia), an ancient Greek city in ...
. His father was Libyan leader
Muammar Gaddafi,
and his mother was
Safia Farkash
Safia Farkash Gaddafi ( ar, صفية فركاش القذافي (born 2 May 1952) is the widow of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, former First Lady of Libya, incumbent Representative of Sirte, and mother of seven of Gaddafi's eight biolo ...
, Gaddafi's second wife.
Saif al-Arab was wounded in the
U.S. bombing attack of 1986 when he was four years old.
Life in Munich
In 2006, Saif al-Arab came to
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
with an Italian tourist visa for a proposed study.
In November that year, Saif al-Arab became involved in a fight with a nightclub bouncer, after his girlfriend was thrown out of Munich's "4004" nightclub for performing a
strip show for Saif al-Arab. In the resulting scuffle Saif al-Arab received a cut to his head. Although Saif al-Arab was charged, the Munich public prosecutor dropped charges on the basis that a prosecution would not be in the public interest. German police later received reports that Saif al-Arab was planning an
acid attack against the bouncer and the Libyan embassy in Germany unsuccessfully attempted to secure diplomatic immunity for Saif al-Arab. By March 2007, Saif al-Arab's location was not known and it was thought that he was not in Germany.
In 2008, Saif al-Arab again stayed in Munich. Excessive noise from the exhaust of his
Ferrari F430
The Ferrari F430 (Type F131) is a sports car produced by the Italian automobile manufacturer Ferrari from 2004 until 2009 as a successor to the Ferrari 360. The car is an update to the 360 with exterior and performance changes. It was unveiled at ...
led to questions from the German police
and his car being impounded.
Also that year Saif al-Arab was suspected of attempting to smuggle an assault rifle, a revolver and munitions from Munich to Paris in a car with diplomatic number plates. However, the case was later dropped as the alleged weapons were never found and the German public prosecutor decided that there was insufficient evidence to proceed with a prosecution.
''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' newspaper reported that German police officers had stated that the case was dropped out of fear that German businesses and residents in Libya would suffer retaliatory action, although this was denied by the German prosecutor's office. In addition to his studies,
Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera ( ar, الجزيرة, translit-std=DIN, translit=al-jazīrah, , "The Island") is a state-owned Arabic-language international radio and TV broadcaster of Qatar. It is based in Doha and operated by the media conglomerate Al Jazeera ...
reported Saif al-Arab engaged in unspecified business activities and spent much of his time partying while in Munich.
Notwithstanding these media reports, Saif al-Arab was viewed as the most low-profile of Gaddafi's sons.
Actions during the Libyan civil war
In February 2011, following the outbreak of the
Libyan Civil War
Demographics of Libya is the demography of Libya, specifically covering population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, and religious affiliations, as well as other aspects of the Libyan population. The ...
, the German press reported that Saif al-Arab had returned to Libya. Subsequently, the Bavarian Interior Ministry stated that he had been declared ''
persona non-grata
In diplomacy, a ' (Latin: "person not welcome", plural: ') is a status applied by a host country to foreign diplomats to remove their protection of diplomatic immunity from arrest and other types of prosecution.
Diplomacy
Under Article 9 of the ...
''.
On 26 February 2011, the
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...
issued
Resolution 1970 which imposed a travel ban on Saif al-Arab but stopped short of imposing
asset freezing
Asset freezing is a form of interim or interlocutory injunction which prevents a defendant to an action from dealing with or dissipating its assets so as to frustrate a potential judgment. It is widely recognised in other common law jurisdictio ...
as it did with many other members of the Gaddafi family.
An
Interpol notice
An Interpol notice is an international alert circulated by Interpol to communicate information about crimes, criminals, and threats by police in a member state (or an authorised international entity) to their counterparts around the world. The in ...
(orange notice) was then issued against him.
Death
On 30 April 2011, a Libyan government spokesman,
Moussa Ibrahim
Moussa Ibrahim Gaddafi ( ar, موسى إبراهيم ; romanized also as ''Mussa'' and ''Musa'', born 7 December 1974) is a Libyan political figure who rose to international attention in 2011 as Muammar Gaddafi's Information Minister and offi ...
, announced an air strike on Saif al-Arab's house had killed Saif al-Arab, along with three of Muammar Gaddafi's grandchildren. Moussa Ibrahim refused to release the names of the grandchildren killed for "privacy reasons". The government also claimed Muammar Gaddafi was present in the house during the attack, but "escaped".
The next day Libyan state TV showed footage of two bodies in a hospital fully covered and veiled, and thus unidentifiable, but claimed that one of them was Saif al-Arab Gaddafi's corpse.
NATO said it struck a command and control center, not a residential structure and that it was not targeting individuals.
The British
Foreign and Commonwealth Office says it is unable to verify if Saif al-Arab or his relatives were killed.
Members of the opposition centred in
Benghazi have speculated that the Libyan government's claim of Saif al-Arab's death was a tactic to gain sympathy.
Abdul Hafez Goga, spokesman for the
National Transitional Council
The National Transitional Council of Libya ( ar, المجلس الوطني الإنتقالي '), sometimes known as the Transitional National Council, was the ''de facto'' government of Libya for a period during and after the Libyan Civil War ...
, said he thinks it could all be fabrication: "Back in 1986, Gaddafi once claimed that
Ronald Reagan, then US president, had launched a strike on his compound in Tripoli and killed his daughter. Many journalists since then investigated and found out that the actual child that had died had nothing to do with Gaddafi, that he sort of adopted her posthumously."
NATO claimed that it has no evidence of his death and could neither confirm nor deny Libyan claims. They further said what the Libyan government has called a "residence" actually held an underground bunker which is used as a command and control center and that was the target.
The French surgeon Gérard Le Clouerec who worked at a private clinic in Libya was asked by the Libyan authorities to provide independent verification of the identity of the bodies of one adult and two children. While Le Clouerec was confident that all three had been killed as a result of blast injuries, due to the severity of the injuries he could not identify the bodies of the children. He was able to confirm that the adult corpse was the body of a man aged about 30, with a thin moustache and beard. Le Clouerec was shown a photograph, which he was told depicted Saif al-Arab. The face of the man's body matched that of the photograph and Le Clouerec concluded that the body was "most probably the son of Colonel Gaddafi." The highest-ranking Roman Catholic official in Tripoli, Apostolic Vicar
Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli
Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli OFM (5 February 1942, in El Khadra, Libya – 30 December 2019, in Saccolongo, Italy) was an Italian Roman Catholic prelate, who was a Vicar Apostolic of Tripoli and the Titular Bishop of Tabuda.
Life
Martinelli ...
, also confirmed the death of Saif al-Arab; his body was reported to be shown to the leaders of churches in Libya.
On 25 May,
Silvio Berlusconi
Silvio Berlusconi ( ; ; born 29 September 1936) is an Italian media tycoon and politician who served as Prime Minister of Italy in four governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies f ...
, the Italian prime minister, dismissed claims of Saif al-Arab's death as propaganda. He said that according to intelligence services, Saif al-Arab was not dead but was living in another unspecified country.
In August, with the pro-Gaddafi forces
on the brink of losing Tripoli, Saif al-Arab's brother
Mutassim spoke of envying Saif al-Arab as according to Mutassim, his brother had been "martyred" in a NATO airstrike. Mutassim had been speaking privately to his former girlfriend,
Talitha van Zon.
Funeral
About 2,000 of Muammar Gaddafi's supporters attended the funeral of the Libyan leader's son Saif al-Arab, his second youngest, in Tripoli on 2 May 2011, as the regime intensified its attack on the besieged city of Misrata. The elder Gaddafi himself did not attend the funeral, however, two of his other sons,
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi
Saif al-Islam Muammar al-Gaddafi ( ar, سيف الإسلام معمر القذافي; born 25 June 1972) is a Libyan political figure. He is the second son of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and his second wife Safia Farkash. He was a p ...
, who was seen as his father's intended successor, and
Hannibal were both observed in the crowd.
[
Saif al-Arab's body, covered in a cloth of pro-Gaddafi green, was brought to the Al-Hani Cemetery in a black ambulance.
Three of Muammar Gaddafi's grandchildren, identified by the authorities as being a child each of Hannibal, Muhammad and their sister Ayesha, were also buried.
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gaddafi, Saif Al-Arab
1982 births
2011 deaths
Date of birth missing
Deaths by airstrike during the First Libyan Civil War
Saif Al-Arab
People from Tripoli
People of the First Libyan Civil War
Libyan people of Bosnia and Herzegovina descent
Libyan people of Croatian descent
Libyan people of Hungarian descent
Sons of national leaders
es:Muamar el Gadafi#Familia Gadafi