Libyan authorities freed the son of former dictator Muammar Gadhafi on Sunday, seven years after first taking him into detention following his extradition from Niger.
Prime Minister-designate Abdul Hamid Dbeibah announced that al-Saadi Gadhafi, 48, had been released to the public on Monday. Gadhafi immediately boarded a plane headed to Istanbul, according to Reuters. He was found not guilty of “murder, deception, threats, enslavement and defamation of the former player Bashir Rayani,” in 2018.
“We cannot move forward without achieving reconciliation,” Dbeibah tweeted after announcing his release. (RELATED: A Visibly Confused, Tired-Looking Joe Biden Mixes Up Libya, Syria Three Times In Speech On Russia)
ROME – AUGUST 29: Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi arrives at Ciampino airport on August 29, 2010 in Rome, Italy. Gadaffi is on an official two-day visit to Italy for talks with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. The visit also marks the second anniversary of a friendship treaty between Italy and Lybia. (Photo by Ernesto Ruscio/Getty Images)
The elder Gadhafi was killed in a NATO-backed uprising against his regime in 2011. His son, then a professional soccer player accustomed to a wealthy lifestyle, fled to Niger only to be tracked down and extradited in 2014.
Al-Saadi is one of Gadhafi’s seven sons, three of whom were also killed in the 2011 uprising. Of the remaining four, one, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, plans to run for president in the nation’s upcoming December elections, according to the Guardian.
Gadhafi’s other children sought asylum in Algeria with his wife and Safiya, al-Saadi’s mother, according to The Associated Press.