Libya’s former top oil official, Shokri Ghanem, whose body was found in the Danube River in Austria April, probably died from a heart attack, according to final autopsy results, the Vienna prosecutors’ office said.
While Ghanem probably wasn’t dead when he fell into the river, he still died from heart failure and not from drowning, Thomas Vecsey, the prosecutors’ spokesman, said. Austrian police are still investigating the circumstances of Ghanem’s death on April 29, which is why the file isn’t closed yet for the Austrian authorities.
Ghanem, 69, was previously chairman of Libya’s state-run National Oil Corp., a role equivalent to oil minister in other OPEC nations. Four months after the uprising in February 2011, Ghanem left the government.
(Source: Bloomberg)