Top British diplomats and MI6 officers have spent nearly two weeks questioning Libya’s former Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa in the hope that they can unlock the secrets of Colonel Gaddafi’s war strategy and end his hated regime.
But a crucial insight into the Libyan leader’s mindset has already been provided by Koussa – the top-flight Gaddafi aide who defected to Britain – in a 226-page study of the dictator written more than 30 years ago.
The Mail on Sunday has uncovered a university dissertation – titled The Political Leader And His Social Background, Muammar Gaddafi, The Libyan Leader – written by Koussa when he was studying at Michigan State University in the United States in the Seventies. The document has been buried in the college archive until now.
Prejudice: Gaddafi (far left) is pictured here with a group of British students in the Libyan capital Tripoli in 1973
For his dissertation, part of a master’s degree course in sociology, Koussa conducted a series of interviews with Gaddafi, and his work reveals vital clues about the source of the dictator’s hatred of the West and in particular the British, linking this animosity to a previously unknown visit to London at height of the swinging Sixties.
Gaddafi, who was sent to England in 1966 to complete his military training, claims that during his four-month stay in England he was insulted by British Army officers whom he accused of ‘oppressing’ him for days.
Further secret National Archive reports, also uncovered by The Mail on Sunday, show that by the time Gaddafi came to power in 1969 the British Government considered him mad, moronic, messianic and a genuine threat to the security of the region.
These papers also reveal how Gaddafi’s table manners during a state occasion caused acute embarrassment – as he drank the water from a finger bowl because he didn’t know what it was for – and that the dictator was once a sex symbol in Sri Lanka.
Koussa’s interviews with Gaddafi took place in 1977 and 1978. Koussa was unknown to the Libyan leader and had to rely on wealthy family connections to secure privileged access to him in order to complete his dissertation.
No comments:
Post a Comment