Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi denied reports that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's son and three grandchildren were killed in a NATO airstrike earlier this month, Italy's Ansa news agency reported.
Libyan state-run JANA news agency earlier reported that the NATO airstrike on a wealthy residential area in Tripoli on May 1 killed Gaddafi's youngest son, Saif al-Arab, 29. The airstrike on Gaddafi's house, according to the agency, also killed three of his grandchildren, as well as several friends and neighbors.
"Gaddafi's youngest son is not in Libya and is living in another country just like his three grandchildren," Berlusconi said adding that earlier reports were nothing but propaganda by the Libyan regime.
The revolt in Libya against Gaddafi's forty-year rule, which began in mid-February, has already claimed thousands of lives, with Gaddafi's troops maintaining their combat capabilities despite NATO airstrikes against them.
ROME, May 26 (RIA Novosti)
