On 3 February, Libyan presidential candidate Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was shot dead by a team of four masked gunmen in Zintan. His killing cannot be read as an isolated security incident, nor as merely another episode in Libya’s long record of political assassinations. The issue does not begin at the moment of his death, nor does it end with identifying who benefited from his removal.
This article does not seek to engage with the frequently asked questions of who killed him, why, or how. These are matters for investigations to determine and settle in the public debate, should their findings ever be made public. Nor is my aim to restate familiar commentary about political assassinations, the elimination of opponents, or the exclusion of rivals. What concerns me is a darker angle: the killing of individuals wanted by the law to ensure the truth remains untold and undermine the path to accountability or justice for the victims.
Regardless of Saif al-Islam’s political relevance, of the fact that he inherited supporters and loyalists from his late father Muammar Gaddafi, and regardless of the symbolic weight of his candidacy in presidential elections that never took place, he remained an individual wanted under international law since 2011. Many people, including his supporters as well as his opponents, wanted to see him appear before a court of law, to determine his guilt or innocence. The charges against him, whether one agrees or disagrees with their details, will now never be answered.
Saif al-Islam is not the first such case. Before him, more than one individual wanted by the International Criminal Court in Libya was killed, not to mention the countless of individuals wanted by domestic courts whose files were closed through death certificates rather than indictments.
One of the most prominent cases is that of Mahmoud al-Werfalli, a commander in the Saiqa Special Forces affiliated with Khalifa Haftar, who was killed in 2021 by unknown gunmen in the centre of Benghazi. Al-Werfalli was allegedly responsible for a series of crimes, including extrajudicial killings of detainees and opponents during what was known as Operation Dignity. He became notorious for shocking videos documenting mass executions, recorded and circulated with sound and image. These materials alone were sufficient for the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant against him.
Yet, not long after the warrant was issued, he was killed in broad daylight, and his case was subsequently closed before any trial could even begin. No investigation was conducted into his killing, no information was disclosed, and the case was registered against unknown perpetrators, as so many others have been. Meanwhile, hundreds of victims were left waiting for justice and redress, looking up the chain of command and asking: why did accountability stop with him? Why did it not move one step higher, to those who gave the orders, or even to the top of the command hierarchy?
The same pattern was repeated with the leader of the Kaniyat militia, Mohammed Khalifa al-Kani, who was killed in the same year, 2021, in Benghazi during clashes with armed groups affiliated with Khalifa Haftar. Al-Kani was wanted by the International Criminal Court and was among the most prominent suspects accused of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, including enforced disappearance, torture, killing, and the perpetration of horrific mass graves. These are among the most serious crimes committed in Libya since 2011.
A year earlier, his brother Mohsen al-Kani, another Kaniyat leader, was killed in 2019 in Benghazi during clashes with armed groups affiliated with Haftar. Mohsen was also wanted by the Court, and he was killed alongside their brother Abdelazim al-Kani.
Once again, bullets preceded judicial rulings, and with them disappeared questions that should have been asked: who gave the orders to commit these crimes? Who provided funding and weapons? Who offered political cover? And who was next in the chain of command that should have been held responsible? With their deaths, the answers were buried, and with them a core path to accountability was destroyed, along with a genuine opportunity for justice and redress for victims.
Taken together, these cases make it clear that eliminating individuals wanted by the International Criminal Court is no longer an exception, but a recurring pattern. Killing has become a means to evade prosecution and a convenient exit from accountability. When an accused person is killed, their testimony dies with them, evidence is obscured, and the path to holding those higher up the chain of responsibility to account is blocked. Even when responsibility does shift, it usually stops at lower-level perpetrators, not those who issued the orders, allowing the cycle of impunity to continue.
There is therefore little value in speculating who carried out the killings, in conspiracy theories, or in pursuing short-term political gains. The scene is familiar, and accusations circulate within a closed loop that leads nowhere. Even those nominal investigations reach the same outcome each time: cases registered against unknown perpetrators. That unknown perpetrator who aborted the course of justice before it could even begin.
In this way, a culture of impunity remains a lived reality, and eliminating wanted individuals becomes one of the effective tools for sustaining it. International justice is left with closed files and suspects buried underground. Domestic courts are left with cases registered against unknown perpetrators. Worse still, victims are left without justice or redress. Each time, it is not only the wanted individuals who are killed, but the very idea of accountability that is killed alongside them.
Ali Alaspli
Libyan human rights defender and former prisoner of conscience. He lives in exile and serves as the Director of Libya Crimes Watch, an organisation documenting human rights violations and advocating for accountability in Libya.
Photo credit: BBCWorldService
