Mehdi Mohammed Zeyo محمد | |
Occupation: | Middle Manager, National Oil Company |
Birth Date: | 1962 |
Birth Place: | Libya |
Death Place: | Benghazi, Libya |
Death Cause: | Altruistic suicide
|
Nationality: | Libya |
Mehdi Mohammed Zeyo (c. 1962 – 20 February 2011) was a Libyan middle manager for a state oil company in Benghazi, Libya. In the wake of the Libyan Civil War, Zeyo found he could no longer bury the civilian youth killed by Muammar Gaddafi's forces; he subsequently decided to use his car to blow up the gates to a military base in Benghazi.[1] This allowed the civilian oppositional fighters to overrun the base and claim Benghazi as an oppositional stronghold in the Libyan Civil War.[1]
NPR reporter Lourdes Garcia-Navarro describes Zeyo as "the most unlikely hero of the Libyan Civil War."[2] As an older gentleman of 49 amongst the youth democracy protesters, the middle-manager for a state oil company joined the peaceful protest movement as soon as it began.[2]