Libyan dictator Moammar Khadafy — accompanied by 40 female bodyguards — began a bizarre four-day visit to Rome yesterday, brazenly wearing a photo of a guerrilla leader hanged by Italy nearly 80 years ago.
Khadafy was warmly greeted by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in a red-carpet welcoming ceremony designed to promote the improving relations between oil-rich Libya and Italy.
But Khadafy, looking haggard in full military dress, pointedly wore a photo on his chest showing legendary Libyan resistance fight Omar Mukhtar chained by his Italian captors.
Mukhtar, who was played by Anthony Quinn in a 1981 movie, “Lion of the Desert,” fought Italy’s occupation of Libya until he was executed in 1931.
Berlusconi, who’s under severe criticism for hosting Khadafy in view of his history of human rights abuses and support for terrorism, shrugged off the past. “A long, painful chapter with Libya has been closed,” he told reporters at the airport.
Khadafy said: “I praise this generation of Italians for having resolved the issues of the past with great courage.”
As Khadafy left for a state lunch with Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, his 300-person entourage pitched his tent — literally — in Rome’s Villa Doria Pamphili park.
Officials said Khadafy was proud of his nomadic heritage and would meet visitors in the huge, Bedouin-style tent in the park.
Khadafy’s itinerary includes:
* A potentially explosive meeting tomorrow with 700 women who are prominent in Italian business, culture and politics. The get-together at a Rome concert hall will be hosted by Maxim model Mara Carfagna, who was named appointed minister of equal opportunities last year by Berlusconi.
Khadafy, 67, had a similar meeting in 2007 in Paris when he said he wanted to “save European women.”
* A meeting with some of the estimated 6,000 Jews who were expelled from Libya after Israel’s victory in the 1967 Six-Day War. Officials said it was arranged in the spirit of “reconciliation.”
But the head of Rome’s Jewish community, Riccardo Pacifici, doubted Khadafy’s sincerity — because the Libyans want the meeting to be held on Saturday morning, on the Jewish Sabbath.
* Another “reconciliation” meeting on Saturday with some of the 20,000 Italians he kicked out of Libya in 1970, a year after he became a military dictator. The expelled Italians are seeking more than $400 million as compensation.
Khadafy is also being given the rare honor of addressing the Italian Senate.
Ties between the nations improved last year when Italy agreed to compensate Libya for the 1911-1943 occupation with a $5 billion package.