Saif al-Islam Gaddafi Reportedly Shot Dead in Zintan (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Saif Gaddafi, the son of deceased Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, has been shot dead. His chief political adviser says a four-man hit team killed him in his house in Zintan in northwestern Libya. According to associates, he'd recently begun pushing for political reconciliation and harboured hopes of a return to relevance. In his heyday, he was one of the most powerful men in Libya, trusted by his father to rehabilitate the North African nation's international standing following Libya's infamous Lockerbie bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988 that killed 270 people, mostly Americans. He brokered the end of his father's nuclear ambitions as European leaders rewarded the oil-rich nation with business contracts. In 2009, after several years of behind-the-scenes diplomacy, Saif helped secure the return of convicted Lockerbie bomber Libyan Abdul Basit al-Mughrahi from jail in Scotland. He worked to release reformed jihadists from jail in Libya and soften his father's brutal image. But when the country turned on his father in 2011, eventually deposing and executing him, Saif threatened the revolutionaries and his former Western allies. He then went on the run himself, fleeing for his life before being captured and taken prisoner inside Libya. By the time he was freed in 2017, the International Criminal Court had a warrant out for his arrest for crimes against humanity. He kept a low profile until his bid for a return to political life. Saif Qadhafi's team urged the Libyan judiciary, the international community, the United Nations and human rights organizations to launch an investigation into his death.