RABAT, February 4. /TASS/. A son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam, who has been killed in the city of Zintan, will not be laid to rest until an investigation into his murder is complete, a member of his political team Abdullah Othman said.

"The funeral will not take place until the necessary crime scene procedures are completed and the murder investigation is finished," the Laam news portal said.

Othman added that the body will be taken to the morgue of a private hospital in Zintan. Earlier, the Al Wasat portal said the public hospitals in Zintan and the nearby town of Ar Rajban denied receiving the body.

Zintan mayor’s office said no provocations against Gaddafi’s son occurred in Zindan prior to his murder. A spokesman for the local authorities said the situation in the city is normal, with no public security threats or enhanced security measures observed in the city and its outskirts before or after the killing.

Public reaction

Libyan politician Suleiman Al-Bayoudi said the killing will continue to reverberate in the Libyan political environment for decades.

"Saif al-Islam’s killing sets a precedent that will affect relations between various groups of the Libyan society for years to come," Egypt’s Shorouk News portal quoted him as saying

The politician doubts that any political force will claim responsibility for the attack, although "many wanted to see him dead."

In turn, another member of Saif al-Islam’s political team, Aqila Delhoum, described the killing as an attack against the entire country.

"What has happened is a crime against our history and against entire Libya. The killing of Saif al-Islam is nothing but a cheap way of removing a political rival," he was quoted as saying by Egypt’s Al Ghad.

In his words, Saif al-Islam was feared by "forces who do not want Libya’s independence." In his opinion, the killing was "the first, but not the last assassination of a Libyan politician by his adversaries. However, he stopped short of naming any potential culprits.