Seif al-Islam went from international playboy to bellicose defender of his dictator father. Now the hothead son of Moammar Khadafy is on the run with anti-Khadafy fighters at his heels. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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A senior member of Libya’s ruling National Transitional Council said Friday that Seif is alive– and that the fighters know his whereabouts.

“For sure he’ll be captured very soon,” Mohammed Sayeh told CNN.

A senior official of Libya’s interim government told Reuters on Friday that Seif had escaped from Sirte, where his father and brother Muatassim met a bloody end a day earlier.

That official said Seif was heading south through the Sahara to Niger, where some of his relatives have already taken refuge.

Seif had once promised “rivers of blood” if the NATO-backed uprising continued. As the fighting raged, prosecutors with the International Criminal Court announced they would try him for crimes against humanity.

He was reportedly captured in August in Tripoli, only to show up at a hotel frequented by reporters.

The privileged son, fluent in English and educated at the London School of Economics, had once pushed for reform in his homeland.

In a New York magazine profile published in May, acquaintances described him as charming and persuasive – with a hand in lucrative business deals as Libya’s economy opened up.

He lived in a $16 million house in a London suburb and partied in St. Tropez.

The second child of eight, Seif was the most well-known of Khadafy’s children and reportedly feuded with some of his siblings for power. Three of his brothers have reportedly been killed, while the other siblings were said to have fled the country.

The 39-year-old eschewed a post in the government of his notoriously eccentric father, who dubbed himself “the Brother Leader and Guide of the Revolution”– but he was still considered a possible heir as ruler.

Once the elder Khadafy came under fire, Seif fiercely defended him, vowing to fight to the end and “to strike back against the rats.”

Seif’s whereabouts remained unclear on Friday as his father’s body was laid out for spectators in a meat locker – and calls for an investigation into his death grew louder.

Graphic video appeared to show the dictator taken into custody alive, prompting questions about whether he was executed rather than killed in a firefight.

Photos which were said to be of Mutassim immediately before and after his death also circulated online – and appeared to show him with a gunshot wound to the neck.

DN