Saif al-Islam Gaddafi has voiced sorrow and bitterness at the way the London School of Economics (LSE) and friends in Britain have turned their backs on him since he endorsed his father’s ruthless efforts to crush the uprising against his dictatorial rule in Libya.
“If you are strong, everybody is nice to you,” Dr Gaddafi replied when asked if he felt betrayed by those in London with whom he mixed socially or did business. He mimicked the high-pitched voice and false smile of the insincere.
But “if you are going to collapse it’s: ‘Bye byeeeeee, see youuuuuu’,” he continued in the same wheedling voice but with a wave of his hand.
Clearly agitated, Dr Gaddafi abruptly ended a 30-minute interview with Paris Match in a Tripoli hotel, said goodbye and left.
The LSE is planning to turn the £300,000 that it received from Dr Gaddafi’s charitable foundation, part of £1.5 million he pledged after completing his PhD in 2008, into a a scholarship fund for disadvantaged North African students. It is also investigating whether he plagiarised part of his PhD thesis. Sir Howard Davies, director of the LSE, has resigned over the controversy, saying he wished he had never helped Colonel Muammar Gaddafi build stronger ties with Britain.
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Speaking about the affair for the first time, Dr Gaddafi insisted: “The mission was to fund a centre at LSE and it was [money] from companies, not from the Libyan Government. It’s very transparent, specific companies, commercial entities, contributed to that fund, and it was 100,000, something 200,000 maximum. It’s not a big deal.”
Before the uprising Dr Gaddafi, 37, was widely seen as a reformer and well-disposed to the West. He spent a lot of time in London, and counted Tony Blair, Lord Mandelson, Nat Rothschild and the Duke of York among his friends. However he was widely condemned for declaring that the regime would fight the rebels to “the last man, the last woman, the last bullet”.
Asked by The Times whether that upset him, he replied: “I hope they’re not condemning me because they’re my friends. Condemn me for what? I am not killing anyone. I am not head of the Armed Forces.”