Tripoli: The mayor of Libya’s third-largest city Misrata has been killed by unidentified assailants who abducted him as he returned from an official trip overseas, a security source said on Monday.

Mohamad Eshtewi’s body was found dumped in the street after he was kidnapped after leaving the airport in the western coastal city late on Sunday, the source said.

The city hospital said it had received the mayor’s body bearing gunshot wounds.

His brother was with him in the car and was wounded in the attack, the security source said.

Eshtewi was returning from an official visit to Turkey with other members of the city council, who were all elected in 2014 for four years.

UN envoy for Libya Ghassan Salame on Twitter denounced the killing and expressed his “profound sadness” over the news.

Britain’s ambassador to Libya, Peter Millett, said he was “deeply saddened by (the) senseless murder.”

“He worked hard to serve his people,” he said on Twitter.

Home to some 400,000 people, Misrata is considered one of Libya’s safest cities.

Its powerful militias played a major role in expelling the Daesh group from the coastal city of Sirte last year.

In October, four people were killed in a suicide bombing claimed by Daesh at the main court building in Misrata.

Libya has been wracked by chaos since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed Muamar Qadhafi, with rival authorities and militias vying for control of the oil-rich country.

Earlier, Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar insisted that the mandate of the country’s UN-backed government has run out after what he said was the expiration of a tattered 2015 political deal.

The UN-brokered agreement signed in Morocco on Dec.17, 2015 established Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) for a one-year period, renewable only once.

Despite that deal, Libya has remained divided between the GNA government in Tripoli led by Prime Minister Fayez Al Sarraj and a rival administration backed by Haftar in the east.

In a televised speech Haftar, who has never recognised the GNA’s authority, said the “expiry of the Libyan political accord” marked a “historic and dangerous turning point.”

“All bodies resulting from this agreement automatically lose their legitimacy, which has been contested from the first day they took office,” he said.

The United Nations Security Council on Thursday insisted the 2015 deal remains the “only viable framework” to prepare for elections next year.

The UN in September launched a fresh push to agree a new accord aimed at bringing stability to Libya, which has been in chaos since the 2011 ouster of Qadhafi.

One of the main stumbling blocks is the inclusion in any potential government of Haftar, whose Libyan National Army dominates the country’s east.

In a statement on Sunday the UN’s special representative to Libya Ghassan Salame said Libyans were “fed up with violence” and hoped “for a political solution, for reconciliation and for harmony.”

“I urge all parties to heed their voices and refrain from any actions that could undermine the political process,” the statement said.

The foreign ministers of Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt after meeting in Tunis on Sunday, welcomed the UN Security Council declaration.

They also reaffirmed their rejection of “any outside interference in Libya” and “any attempt by any Libyan party to derail the political process” there.

Agence France-Presse