[1] Khamis, who was said to be uninterested in politics, rose in prominence in the 2000s due to the exile of his older brother Mutassim, who was sent to Egypt in 2001 after being accused by senior officials of plotting to seize power from his father.

[5] He was especially close to his reformist older brother Saif al-Islam and spent considerable time with him in the early phase of the Arab Spring.

According to Paul Gennaro, AECOM's Senior Vice President for Global Communications, Gaddafi was touring the United States in February 2011 as part of his internship, including visiting military sites and landmarks.

This trip was cut short on 17 February after the Libyan Civil War began, and Gaddafi returned to Libya.

"[12] On 20 March 2011, it was reported by the anti-Gaddafi Al Manara Media that Khamis had died from injuries sustained when pilot Muhammad Mokhtar Osman allegedly crashed his plane into Bab al-Azizia a week earlier.

[23] On 9 August, a man who appeared to be Khamis was on Libyan state television speaking to a woman who had allegedly been severely injured by a NATO airstrike.

[24] On 22 August, Al Jazeera reported that the bodies of both Khamis and his father's intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi may have been discovered in Tripoli during the battle for the city.

[29] On 29 August, it was reported that anti-Gaddafi fighters 60 km south of Tripoli claimed that a NATO Apache helicopter had fired on Khamis Gaddafi's Toyota Land Cruiser, destroying the vehicle.

His personal guard, Abdul Salam Taher Fagri, a 17-year-old from Sabha, recruited in Tripoli, later confirmed that Khamis was indeed killed in this attack.

A statement from the Libyan National Congress's spokesman, Omar Hamdan, claimed Gaddafi was killed "in battle", but gave no further details.

His body was purportedly found after a day of heavy fighting between the town's pro-Gaddafi garrison and militias allied to the Libyan government.

[43][44] A government spokesman denied that there was any official confirmation about the capture of Mussa Ibrahim to Agence France-Presse, and did not even talk about the rumor of Khamis Gaddafi's death.

[46] Musa Ibrahim, the former spokesman of Muammar Gaddafi, personally disproved the message on the arrest saying he was not even in Libya and denied the most recent reports on the death of Khamis.