India, Feb. 4 -- Saif al-Islam Gaddafi once symbolised Libya's future to the outside world - Western-educated, reform-minded and presented as the bridge between authoritarian rule and global acceptance.

On Tuesday (February 3), that carefully cultivated image met a violent end.

More than a decade after the fall of his father, former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam was shot dead in western Libya, bringing closure to one of the most controversial political lives of the post-Arab Spring era.

Libyan authorities confirmed that the 53-year-old was killed in Zintan, a mountain town southwest of Tripoli that had defined both his captivity and his uneasy freedom since 2011.

His death has reopened long-standing questions about ac...