When he was captured, lying face down in the dust of the central Sahara, his hands being cuffed behind him, he tried to pretend he could escape recognition. "My name is Abdulsalam al-Targi," he told his captor, Alajami Ali Al-Ateri.
Al-Targi means The Touareg; the effete academic still wearing his silver-rimmed spectacles was trying to pass himself off as a hardy desert nomad.
As he was led away, he showed his nerves. "I can tell you are from Zintan," he said. "Don't take me to any of those other places. Shoot me or take me to Zintan."
He knew what had happened to his father when captured by men from "other places". Zintan, apparently, prides itself on its code of honour.
But as he sat in the car on the way to the airport, the other Saif al-Islam showed his face.
Related Articles
-
Libya: Abdullah al-Senussi captured
20 Nov 2011 -
Saif Gaddafi arrest could prove embarrassing for Tony Blair
20 Nov 2011 -
Libya: lack of justice system raises confusion over where Saif Gaddafi will face trial
20 Nov 2011 -
Libya: Saif Gaddafi's fear exposed in recording
20 Nov 2011 -
Libya: conflict brewing over trial of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi
20 Nov 2011
"It was like he was trying to show off," Mr Al-Ateri told The Daily Telegraph in Zintan on Sunday night. "He was back to using his old language.
"He said that this revolution would not succeed. Libya would go back to being how it was under his father's rule. The crusaders and the Qataris who came to fight us would not take us anywhere, we would never win."
Then the nervous Saif returned. As they boarded the plane, to what he thought was an uncertain fate, he began to beg again. "When we get there I don't want to be insulted or mistreated," he said.
According to Mr al-Ateri's band of 14 men who captured him, deep in the desert dunes north of the oasis oil town of Obari, it was a classic set-up.
Though the Zintan brigade had help from western intelligence agencies throughout the war, British and French intelligence sources denied any involvement.
Instead, Mr Al-Ateri and another member of the squad, Ahmed Amer, said, they had heard reports from intelligence sources, relayed through Zintan and Tripoli, of a "VIP" hiding near Sabha, the main city in the region.
Even when a local man approached them to say he had been offered one million euros to escort the "VIP" through the desert to the border with Niger and Algeria they did not realise who it was.
They laid the trap well. They told the informant to lead the convoy of vehicles – in the end just two Toyota Land Cruisers – to the centre of an area of sand dunes, for 1.30am. The "VIP" thought he was escaping; in fact he was being led into an ambush.
"The informant was driving the first car and came to a halt," Mr al-Ateri said. "We surrounded them firing into the air."
They also fired into the engine of the second car, preventing its escape.
Its occupants, four men, tried to run for it but could get nowhere in the dunes.
In the first car was a Gaddafi cousin. With Saif al-Islam was the nephew of Abdullah Senussi, Amr Abdulgasem Amr, and two bodyguards, all of whom were returned to Zintan with their former boss.
Saif had already escaped capture at least twice. This time there was no such luck. In the end, the five went quietly, Saif lying down in his brown Toureg's robes, headscarf wrapped around his face, to be handcuffed.
"We approached the car," Ali al-Hameli, another of the group, said. "He was confused, panicking as we approached the car. He tried to escape, running away from the car.
"Then he lay down in the sand, hiding face down in his disguise." All Mr al-Ateri could see were his eyes.
"I have to say they seemed familiar," he said. But it was one of Saif's gang who snitched. "You realise who that is," he said, and then the celebrations began. Mr al-Ateri said he was sure to bring his emotions under control.
The rebels searched the vehicle and found a hand grenade, several Kalashnikov rifles, and $4,000 (£2,500) in cash.
On Saturday morning, a Russian-built Antonov An-32 painted with the new tricolor flag of "Free Libya" and piloted by a former air force colonel turned Zintan rebel, flew from Tripoli to Obari.
The pilot, Abdullah al-Mehdi, and the other two crew in the cockpit chain-smoked their way through the flight back to Zintan, navigating the propeller transport aircraft across the desert on analogue instruments, with a GPS device clamped on the windscreen.
Within minutes of touching down the plane was surrounded by hundreds of people chanting "Allahu akbar" and rocking the plane as they fired into the air, clambered over the wings and tried to prise the door open.
The guards said they had informed no one outside of Zintan of the capture, not even the government in Tripoli. But by the time the plane landed, everyone in Zintan certainly knew.
"I knew it. I knew that there would be a big crowd. If I knew this was what would happen, I should have rammed my head through the window," Saif said.
The uncertainties returned, the preening, vainglorious Gaddafi disappearing. "I'm staying here. They'll empty their guns into me the second I go out there," he said, though he added in a moment of awareness of the front he was supposed to put up: "I have no problem with that."
Then his convoy arrived, and he was whisked off, through the mob, to his new home. Where it is, no one who knows is saying. But with the town still revelling in its new celebrity, saying they will not give up their captive, it may be home for some time.
Orignal From: Saif Gaddafi capture to the end a contradiction of ordinary mortal and deranged princeling
0 komentar:
Posta un commento