Austrian police say former Libyan oil minister Shukri Ghanem was found dead in the Danube river near Vienna.
Police spokesman Roman Hahslinger told Al Jazeera his corpse was found on Sunday morning floating in the river and showed no external signs of violence.
He said the cause of death was not immediately clear and officials will carry out an autopsy in the coming days.
Ghanem was last seen by his daughter on Saturday night in their apartment in a suburb of Vienna. She went to bed and when she woke up he was not in the apartment.
She called the police who told her the body was found in the Danube, 20m from the shore, close to the apartment in Copa Cagrana, a popular a waterfront that is filled with bar and restaurants.
Ghanem, who worked as a consultant for a Vienna-based company, was wearing jeans and “normal” clothes but had no personal identification on him other than a document that named the company he was working for, Hahslinger said.
An employee of the company was subsequently contacted and identified him, the police spokesman said.
Joerg Michener, a journalist based in Vienna, told Al Jazeera that a passerby had found Ghanem’s body in the river on Saturday morning.
“Initially the family reported that Ghanem had died at home in his apartment but police have now dispelled this rumour. They have said that clearly somebody has found his body in the Danube River,” Michener said.
“As far as we know there are no direct links to the Libyan revolution but police are currently investigating this.”
The police are appealing for witnesses and hope to conduct a post-mortem examination on Monday.
Hahslinger said Ghanem apparently left his residence early Sunday morning after spending Saturday evening at home with an acquaintance. He had no further details.
Ghanem, 69, served under Libya’s late leader Muammar Gaddafi as prime minister from 2003 to 2006 and then as oil minister until 2011.