Gaddafi's Canadian Connection

"Libya has the responsibility to see that Saadi Gaddafi gets his full due process rights. They should protect him from torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; allow him visits from legal counsel, his family, and medical personnel; and bring him promptly before a judge."
Human Rights Watch

"Saadi Muammar Gaddafi was extradited to Libya from Niger this morning, March 6, and is currently detained by Libya's Judicial Police. The Libyan government is keen that the suspect, Saadi Gaddafi will receive a just and a fair treatment that will reflect international standards. [Thanks to Nigerians] for their co-operation which led to the handover."
Libyan prime minister's office

Saadi Gaddafi, son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, speaks during a news conference at his office in Tripoli in this January 31, 2010 file photo.
Credit: REUTERS/Ismail Zetouny/Files

In Toronto, Saadi Gaddafi owned a penthouse suite, he hosted lavish parties and was able to offer access to the dictatorship fuelled by oil wealth, headed by his infamous father. That, needless to say, represented his glory days as the playboy, wealth-fuelled son of one of the Muslim world's most peculiar, volatile, self-adoring, terrorist-supporting regimes in North Africa. Gaddafi pere met an untimely and horribly gruesome death at the hands of barbaric Libyan tribesmen.

Presumably, his son will meet a fate where a different kind of justice will be dispensed, one leavened by civilized practices, abjuring the commission of atrocities to make a statement of revenge. Mr. Gaddafi, according to a spokesman for Libya's attorney general, faces charges in relation to the conflict and attempts to keep his father in power, along with other charges concerning his time as coach of Tripoli's Al Ittihad soccer team.

And the Canadian connection? RCMP documents filed in court attest that Montreal-based SNC-Lavalin Group Inc. paid Mr. Gaddafi $160-million in bribes for which they received in turn major construction contracts in Libya. Riadh Ben Aissa, then the company's vice-president was the go-between, funnelling the funds to offshore companies controlled by Ben Aissa, then transferred to accounts controlled by Mr. Gaddafi.

According to Corporal Brenda Makad, a member of the RCMP's anti-corruption squad in a sworn statement, the kickbacks helped "to buy yachts for the benefit of Saadi Gaddafi." SNC-Lavalin also paid $200,000 to redecorate Mr. Gaddafi's $1.6-million Toronto penthouse. She also described Mr. Ben Aissa and Mr. Gaddafi as having "maintained an amicable and mutually beneficial relationship" in an obviously wry attempt at understatement.

Their relationship was tight enough to give concern to Mr. Ben Aissa over his friend's plight with the fall of the Gaddafi regime, when Mr. Ben Aissa and his associate Stephane Roy financed a mission to fly Mr. Gaddafi and his family to Mexico, kindly financed by the company. The arrangements failed, and Mr. Gaddafi took to his own rescue, escaping Tripoli in an armed convoy that deposited him in Niger. Niger obligingly permitted Mr. Gaddafi to remain there, with his entourage.

Until the time when the situation became rather fraught. "They were enjoined to stay quiet and do nothing to destabilize Libya. And unfortunately, the Libyans gave us lots of information that they were not staying quiet", divulged Niger Justice Minister Marou Amadou. Mr. Gaddafi was accused of maintaining contact with Libyan militias loyal to his father, plotting from exile to overthrow the new government.

"We couldn't keep harbouring people who were taking actions that destabilized Libya", explained Mr. Amadou.