Photo of crowd at funeral for Seif al-Islam Gaddafi was generated by AI
- Published on March 6, 2026 at 13:22
- 4 min read
- By SUY Kahofi, AFP Ivory Coast
- Translation and adaptation Samad UTHMAN, AFP Nigeria
Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, one of the sons of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, was killed at his home in February 2026. His funeral was held three days later, attracting thousands of supporters. A photo widely shared on social media purports to show his coffin before a crowd stretching as far as the eye can see, along with some posts claiming the ceremony drew over a million people. However, this is false; the image was generated using artificial intelligence tools and exaggerates the real size of the crowd.
“Over a million people attended brother Saif al-Islam Gaddafi’s funeral in Bani Walid (sic). This is the largest funeral in the history of Libya,” reads the caption of a Facebook post published on February 7, 2026.
The image shows a large crowd lined up in rows observing a wrapped body, consistent with an Islamic funeral prayer.
Shared more than 650 times, the post was published by an account called “Native Reporters”, which posts news about Nigeria and global events.
Similar claims were published elsewhere on Facebook (here, here and here).
Seif al-Islam, wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged crimes against humanity, was assassinated on February 3, 2026, in western Libya (archived here).
His lawyer, Marcel Ceccaldi, told AFP he was killed by an unidentified “four-man commando” who stormed his house in the city of Zintan (archived here).
The slain son of former Libyan ruler Gaddafi was buried on February 6, 2026, in Bani Walid, a town that still holds allegiance to the late longtime leader.
However, while his burial ceremony drew a large crowd, including thousands of his father’s loyalists from other parts of the country, the photo in the claim does not depict his funeral (archived here).
Crowd exaggerated
Several inconsistencies typical of AI-generated content are evident in the image, such as distorted faces and intertwined bodies and hands that seem almost melted into one another.
Another telling sign is the inscription on the buildings in the background. A series of characters can be seen following after one another without forming a legible word.
Analysis of the image using Hive Moderation, an AI detection tool, found that it was 99 percent likely to be artificially generated.
No coffin visible
Photographer Mahmud Turkia, who covered the funeral for AFP, told AFP Fact Check that the image was “far from reality” and he pointed out several inaccuracies.
Turkia said that no coffin was displayed during the funeral prayer, contrary to the Facebook posts showing a casket in front of the crowds.
“Even up close, we did not see any coffin in the four vehicles” that made up the procession, he said, adding that at no time “was a coffin taken out of a car,” even when he flew a drone over the entire crowd to film the proceedings.
All the photos and videos published by credible media confirm this: none show a coffin, as can be seen in this article from Africanews, which uses images from the Associated Press (AP) news agency (archived here).
Turkia also noted that the crowd at the ceremony was not neatly arranged like the people in the AI image. On the contrary, there was “a lot of confusion,” he said.
“People weren’t lined up like that; they were more around [the procession] on the right and left, but they weren’t lined up like in that picture.”
Finally, Turkia pointed out that the ceremony took place near Bani Walid airport, but in an “open area, without buildings”, which also does not correspond to the AI-generated image.
Thousands, not a million
The AI-generated image is being shared online to support the claim that the crowd at the funeral was exceptionally large, with some even saying a million people attended the ceremony.
No official figures have been released regarding the number of people who followed the funeral procession, but to say that it consisted of more than a million people is “far from the truth”, according to the AFP bureau in Tripoli.
Several journalists at the scene, including Turkia and others from agencies like AP, estimated the crowd to be in the thousands (archived here and here).
Several drone photos taken by Turkia show that the event did indeed attract a large crowd, but fewer than seen in the AI-generated image.
AFP Fact Check previously published the debunk in French here.
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