The sinister side behind 'mad dog' facade

12 April 2012

Whatever the final moments of the rebel attack on Tripoli bring, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's four-decade-long grip on power has been broken.

His fall brings to an end the rule of one of the world's most colourful dictators whose exploits range from masterminding terrorism to breaking wind during a BBC interview.

For much of the time since he seized power in a military coup in 1969, the flamboyant Libyan leader has often outwitted his opponents despite being ridiculed for his bombastic, rambling speeches and highly unpredictable behaviour.

Branded "mad dog" by Ronald Reagan, the self-styled "Brother Leader" was accompanied on his travels abroad by a blonde Ukrainian nurse and insisted on staying in his Bedouin tent.

When he was interviewed by the BBC's John Simpson, he noisily broke wind throughout their encounter, while on an official visit to Italy, he paid a modelling agency to find 200 women to attend a lecture he gave urging them to convert to Islam.

But beneath all this there has been much that is far more sinister. Throughout his rule, the 69-year-old leader has tolerated no dissent and, according to dissidents, once executed 1,200 prisoners in one jail in just three hours.

Internationally too, Gaddafi's role has been equally malign. He shipped arms to the IRA during the Troubles in Northern Ireland and his regime has accepted responsibility for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

Another notorious incident occurred in 1984 when diplomats at the Libyan embassy in London opened fire on a demonstrating, killing Pc Yvonne Fletcher.

In 1986, the bombing by Libyan agents of a Berlin nightclub, in which two off-duty American servicemen died, prompted President Reagan to launch air strikes on Tripoli and Benghazi.

Gaddafi's adopted daughter was among 35 Libyans killed in the raid.

After the death of 270 people in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish village of Lockerbie, Gaddafi was subjected to sanctions by the United Nations.

He finally began to emerge from the cold when South African President Nelson Mandela helped to broker a deal which saw two Libyan intelligence officers handed over in 1999 to stand trial before a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands.

Gaddafi's rehabilitation seemed complete when the same year he admitted that Libya had a weapons of mass destruction programme which he offered to dismantle.

That led Tony Blair to travel to Tripoli to welcome the West's new ally in the "War on Terror".

Gaddafi's provocative conduct never abated entirely, however, and he infuriated the US after giving a hero's welcome to the freed Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, on his return to Tripoli.

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