BANI WALID, Libya>> Thousands converged in northwestern Libya for the funeral Friday of Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, the son and one-time heir apparent of Libya’s late leader Moammar Gadhafi, who was killed this week when four masked assailants stormed into his home and fatally shot him.

Mourners carried his coffin in the town of Bani Walid, about 90 miles southeast of the capital, Tripoli, as well as large photographs of Seif al-Islam, who was known mostly by his first name, and his father.

The crowd also waved plain green flags, Libya’s official flag from 1977 to 2011 under Gadhafi, who ruled the country for more than 40 years before being toppled in a NATO-backed popular uprising in 2011. Gadhafi was killed later that year in his hometown of Sirte as fighting in Libya escalated into a full-blown civil war.

As the funeral procession got underway and the crowds swelled, a small group of supporters took Seif al-Islam’s coffin away and later performed the funeral prayers and buried him.

Ali Saleh, a resident of Sirte city, told The Associated Press said that Gadhafi’s son was a “symbol of reconciliation” who was killed in a “horrible crime in the history of mankind.”

Seif al-Islam, 53, was killed on Tuesday inside his home in the town of Zintan, about 85 miles southwest of the capital, Tripoli, according to prosecutors.

Authorities said an initial investigation found that he was shot to death but did not provide further details. Seif al-Islam’s political team later released a statement saying “four masked men” had stormed his house and killed him in a “cowardly and treacherous assassination,” after disabling security cameras.

Seif al-Islam was captured by fighters in Zintan late in 2011 while trying to flee to neighboring Niger. The fighters released him in June 2017, after one of Libya’s rival governments granted him amnesty.

“The pain of loss weighs heavily on my heart, and it intensifies because I can’t bid him farewell from within my homeland — a pain that words can’t ease,” Seif al-Islam’s brother Mohamed Gadhafi, who lives in exile outside Libya though his current whereabouts are unknown, wrote on Facebook on Friday.

“But my solace lies in the fact that the loyal sons of the nation are fulfilling their duty and will give him a farewell befitting his stature,” the brother wrote.