Dead for fifteen years, yet Gaddafi still shapes political debate in a divided Libya

Two days ago, on 20 October, Gaddafi’s supporters marked the fifteenth anniversary of his death. Killed and hurriedly buried in a secret grave whose location remains unknown to all but those who buried him, Gaddafi seems to have left behind a secret that the current order fears to reveal, as if his grave itself were a threat to the country’s disorder. Many Libyans believe that Gaddafi went to his grave taking the country with him.

Denied the opportunity to give Gaddafi a proper public funeral, those who gathered for Saif al-Islam’s funeral came to mourn the son and, through him, the father. Killed in February this year, Saif left behind another unresolved question of political violence and accountability. Libya’s Public Prosecutor’s Office announced that it had identified suspects and issued arrest warrants, but eight months later, nobody has been brought to court. The deaths of father and son remain bound together by a question Libya has yet to answer: can the new Libya finally move beyond the Gaddafis, or will their deaths and unresolved legacies continue to shape its future?

Fifteen years after Muammar Gaddafi’s murder in Sirte and months after his son Saif al-Islam met a similar fate, Libya remains trapped in a paralysis born of unaddressed violence. The refusal to establish transparency in either death—whether through an undisclosed desert grave or delayed justice—reflects a political class terrified of confronting its own foundations. By treating accountability as a privilege reserved for victors, successive authorities have made impunity the primary currency of Libyan governance.

The failure to establish the truth behind these deaths is not merely a legal oversight; it is a cornerstone of a divided state where power is maintained through silence and fear of what the truth might reveal.

What happened in 2011 was not the end of tyranny, but the baptism of a new era of unpunished political violence. Muammar Gaddafi’s summary execution set a dangerous precedent: that power in post-revolutionary Libya would be defined by the gun, not the ballot. Fifteen years after the revolution, the killing of his son, Saif al-Islam, demonstrates that this logic remains undisturbed. The transition from revolutionary fervour to militia governance did not build institutions; it institutionalised vengeance, enriched armed warlords and unleashed massive cycles of corruption, leaving Libya ranked 177th out of 182 countries and territories in Transparency International’s 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index. Investigating Saif’s killing honestly would mean pulling at a thread that threatens to unravel the entire fabric of post-2011 power structures.

For millions of Libyans today, nostalgia for the Gaddafi era is not necessarily an endorsement of his rule, but a longing for a functional life that has since been destroyed.

Beyond the simplified narratives presented in Western media, daily existence under Gaddafi offered guarantees that now seem unimaginable: widespread physical security, women driving safely at late hours, uninterrupted basic services, and affordable living costs.

Lower-income families received guaranteed annual incomes derived from state-allocated shares in prime public assets, including telecommunications and oil services. Crucially, fifteen years of intense international scrutiny and financial digging have failed to produce a single shred of evidence showing that Gaddafi personally siphoned billions into secret Western bank accounts as many of his opponents sometimes allege. Instead, the post-2011 era replaced state-guaranteed social stability with systematic militia plunder.

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The Gaddafis, father and son, remain part of Libya’s political present precisely because their deaths did not settle the questions at the heart of the new Libya. For many Libyans, their name evokes stability and a lost state, while Saif al-Islam’s ability to attract support exposed divisions that post-2011 Libya has yet to transcend. When he was assassinated in February this year, the public outpouring at his funeral in Bani Walid—where thousands gathered under the old green flags—was as much a protest against current conditions as a tribute to the deceased. For a significant portion of the population, his death represented not merely the loss of a political figure but the extinguishing of an alternative path away from militia hegemony. The failure to build a political order capable of addressing these divisions has kept the Gaddafi legacy a living fault line in struggles over Libya’s identity, legitimacy and future.

Meanwhile, the Public Prosecutor’s Office announced that it had identified suspects and issued arrest warrants, but paper warrants mean little in a nation governed by armed factions.

The test is not whether warrants can be written, but whether the state has the independence and power to arrest, try and hold the perpetrators accountable.

Beyond the breakdown of domestic order, Libya is suffering a profound erosion of sovereignty that would make Gaddafi turn in his unmapped grave. Whatever his faults, he took pride in evicting all foreign military bases from Libyan soil within months of seizing power in 1969. Today’s surrender of independence is nowhere clearer than in the political manoeuvring over foreign intervention. In 2019, Ankara secured a security and maritime deal with a desperate Government of National Accord, then besieged by Khalifa Haftar’s forces just kilometres from central Tripoli, in return for military support that helped it survive. The deal gave Turkey a direct military foothold in Libya. Politicians across the spectrum, including the House of Representatives, initially denounced the arrangement as a betrayal of national sovereignty. Yet on 20 October 2026, the same House approved the maritime agreement. This reversal exposed how post-2011 political elites discard principles for short-term survival, turning Libya into an arena for foreign power struggles and mortgaging its independence piece by piece.

The unresolved deaths of father and son, fifteen years apart, stand as twin symbols of a post-2011 order built on quicksand. The current political class—paralyzed by fear of what total truth might unveil, reliant on militia rifles for survival, and subservient to foreign sponsors—cannot offer Libya a way forward because they are the primary beneficiaries of the country’s ongoing chaos. By refusing to confront politically motivated killings and the countless lives taken for no justifiable reason, Libya’s rulers have ensured that rule of law remains an illusion. Without transparent investigations and equal accountability for all victims, genuine national reconciliation is impossible—and without reconciliation, there can be no path toward a stable, secure, and sovereign Libya.

Until justice is treated as a universal right rather than a victor’s privilege, the shadow of the past will continue to divide the present, leaving the country trapped in permanent ruin.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.