Nick Meo, London
November 21, 2011
Man of many faces ... Saif al-Islam dressed as a soldier in August,. Photo: Reuters
ONCE heir apparent to his father, Muammar Gaddafi, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi was a captive on Saturday in the hands of fighters from a town his father bombarded and vowed to destroy.
They caught him in the deep south of Libya where he was hiding in the desert with four bodyguards, down to his last few thousand dollars and armed with a few guns.
The place was on a possible escape route through the Sahara to Niger, where his brother Saadi has taken refuge.
Playboy ... Saif al-Islam Gadhafi in Berlin in 2009. Photo: AP
''At the beginning, he was very scared,'' said Ahmed Ammar, who was in command of the fighters who found him. ''He thought we would kill him.''
They were investigating a tip-off about a high-profile fugitive hiding about 65 kilometres from the small oil town of Ubari. Saif al-Islam must have been thinking of his father and brother Mutassim, who were brutalised and killed soon after their capture in Sirte last month.
Mr Ammar said his unit of 15 men had stopped Saif al-Islam's vehicle on Saturday morning.
The man in charge replied that he was ''Abdelsalam'', a name meaning ''servant of peace''. But the fighters quickly recognised him. They seized him without a fight, despite Saif's bombastic claims months ago that he would fight to the death. Fighters said he had been hiding in the area for about a month.
They flew their prize to Zintan, a mountain town two hours drive south of Tripoli.
At the town's airport, hundreds lined the runway for a glimpse of the once-mighty son who terrorised them for months earlier this year.
The sounds of celebratory gunfire and car horns echoed across Tripoli. Libyans watched in astonishment as television images showed a defeated, hunched-down figure on the aircraft to Zintan.
The figure was a familiar one, yet he was not the well-groomed man, fond of expensive designer clothes who they had expected to take over from his father one day. Instead, he was wearing traditional robes with a scarf pulled over his face, with a heavy black beard and his favourite rimless spectacles.
His fingers were bandaged, thought to be the result of injuries from a NATO air strike weeks ago, although fighters said on a Facebook page that they had cut them off after capturing him.
He had last been seen about October 19 in Bani Walid, near Tripoli, then he vanished into the desert as forces loyal to him crumbled.
One Zintan commander, Bashir al-Tlayeb, claimed Saif al-Islam had been trying to flee to Niger. His bungled escape and capture were the last humiliating steps in an extraordinary and bizarre career.
The 39-year-old started as a playboy who became the reformist darling of the West, educated at the London School of Economics. Then he became cheerleader for his father's repression when the uprising broke out in February, tried to reinvent himself as an Islamist in an attempt to rally support in the spring and then became a military commander as the rebels closed in during August.
During the uprising, he had looked arrogant and cocksure, jabbing his finger at crowds as he lectured them.
On Saturday, he was displayed like a trophy by fighters from Zintan, a town that fought his family ferociously.
Telegraph, London
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/from-playboy-to-prisoner--the-transformation-of-an-heir-apparent-20111120-1npeq.html#ixzz1eK6nn700
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