19 November 2011 Last updated at 15:09 ET

Profile: Saif al-Islam Gaddafi

Saif al-Islam, whose name means Sword of Islam, has always denied that he was seeking to inherit power from his father

Libya Crisis

Saif al-Islam's capture in southern Libya on 19 November brought to an ignominious end three months on the run for a man once widely considered Muammar Gaddafi's heir apparent.

Despite holding no official position in the Libyan government, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was long seen as the most influential figure in the country after his father.

But he is now wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) accused of crimes against humanity for his alleged role in the suppression of opposition protests in February.

Until the rebellion - and the government's response - this stylish English-speaker, 39, was considered the reformist face of the Libyan government.

As rebels closed in on the capital, though, the second of Col Gaddafi's nine children vowed to fight to the end against the insurgents, accusing them of being drunkards, thugs and terrorists.

The rebels claimed to have captured him in August, during their advance on Tripoli. But he later turned up outside a hotel in the capital, greeting crowds of cheering supporters, before disappearing again.

Western links

The Western-educated English speaker was once regarded as the reformist face of the Libyan government. He played a key role in Libya's rapprochement with the West between 2000 and the 2011 uprising.

As head of the Gaddafi family's charity and allegedly the multi-billion dollar sovereign wealth fund, the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) - although he denies this - Saif al-Islam had access to huge amounts of money, which he used to smooth relations with the West.

Who is Saif al-Islam?

Born 1972
Stylish, English-speaking bachelor
Trained engineer
Long seen as likely successor to his father - suggestions he played down
Previously seen as reformist face of his father's regime
Played key role in rapprochement with the West from 2000-2011
Accused of organising brutal crackdown on opposition protests in February

He was involved in the negotiations which led his father to abandon his nuclear weapons programme and later helped mediate the release of six Bulgarian medics accused of infecting children with HIV in a Libyan hospital.

He also negotiated compensation for the families of those killed in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, the 1986 Berlin nightclub attack and the 1989 downing of UTA flight 772.

Again, he is said to have been involved in talks about the controversial 2009 decision to free from prison the man convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.

After these agreements, international sanctions were lifted and with Saif al-Islam prominent both politically and economically, Libya seemed set to embark on an era of remarkable change.

Its oil sector was starting to open up and Libya had agreed to tackle the growing flow of sub-Saharan African migrants through the country to Europe.

Saif al-Islam owned a house in London and had links to British political figures as well as the Royal Family. He met the Duke of York twice - once at Buckingham Palace and on another occasion in Tripoli.

He is known to have kept two tigers as pets and also enjoyed hunting with falcons in the deserts - a pastime traditionally enjoyed by Arab royals - and is a keen amateur painter.

Saif al-Islam, whose name means Sword of Islam, always denied that he was seeking to inherit power from his father, saying the reins of power were "not a farm to inherit".

He also called for political reform - a theme he addressed in the doctorate he obtained the same year from the London School of Economics (LSE).

When Saif al-Islam's role in the crackdown against protesters was reported, LSE director Howard Davies resigned from his post after facing criticism for accepting donations from the charitable foundation led by the son of the Libyan leader.

The university is also investigating the authenticity of Saif al-Islam's PhD thesis, amid reports it was plagiarised.