Libyan dictator raped women, held them captive. His security director shares harrowing, previously secret details
(Credit: AP/John Redman)
The only pictures available of him date to his capture on October 20, 2011, the same day that Muammar Gaddafi was captured. A short chaotic film taken by a rebel on a cell phone shows him haggard, disheveled, hair and beard unkempt, a wound caused by explosives beneath his right eye. His frantic flight with the Libyan Guide, whose much-feared chief of security he was, ended in carnage at the edge of the desert. This was the terrible image of a man defeated.
Mansour Daw stayed with the Libyan dictator until the very end, hurriedly leaving Bab al-Azizia when the insurgents seized Tripoli, first rushing off toward Bani Walid, where Gaddafi said farewell to his gathered family before heading for Sirte in the west—hiding there in ordinary houses that soon lacked all reserves, electricity, or food, and increasingly outnumbered by rebels—until the ultimate attempt at flight was stopped outright at dawn by NATO firing. Mansour was one of the few survivors of the last group of the faithful. And together with Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam, he was the most important of the prisoners captured by the new regime. His name embodied the terror that was maintained for decades, and more recently the barbarous acts—rape, torture, executions—committed in his country to put down the revolution. All of Libya was waiting for him to explain himself. But Mansour Daw wasn’t talking. At least, that is what Ibrahim Beitalmal, a member of the Misrata Military Council and in charge of the military prisoners, was eager to warn me about when he gave me permission to meet with him.
On Saturday, March 10, 2012, he came into the large meeting hall of a building of the national army in Misrata, looking relaxed—in a khaki jacket, a wool cap on his head—and rested. His white beard was trimmed very short, and an ironic smile played around his lips. He had agreed to the idea of an interview without knowing its topic. Perhaps he saw it as a distraction in his solitary days. “I was in France four times,” he said as an introduction. “It was very nice.” All well and good, but we weren’t here to exchange pleasantries. I told him that I was investigating a subject that was said to be taboo, the sexual crimes of Colonel Gaddafi, and I was hoping he would tell me what he knew about it. “Nothing,” he answered. “I knew nothing. As a member of his family I owed him respect. So there was no question of broaching the subject with him. Besides, I didn’t even let myself look in that direction. Keeping my distance was the best way for me to keep my self-respect. I was protecting myself.”
The only pictures available of him date to his capture on October 20, 2011, the same day that Muammar Gaddafi was captured. A short chaotic film taken by a rebel on a cell phone shows him haggard, disheveled, hair and beard unkempt, a wound caused by explosives beneath his right eye. His frantic flight with the Libyan Guide, whose much-feared chief of security he was, ended in carnage at the edge of the desert. This was the terrible image of a man defeated.
Mansour Daw stayed with the Libyan dictator until the very end, hurriedly leaving Bab al-Azizia when the insurgents seized Tripoli, first rushing off toward Bani Walid, where Gaddafi said farewell to his gathered family before heading for Sirte in the west—hiding there in ordinary houses that soon lacked all reserves, electricity, or food, and increasingly outnumbered by rebels—until the ultimate attempt at flight was stopped outright at dawn by NATO firing. Mansour was one of the few survivors of the last group of the faithful. And together with Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam, he was the most important of the prisoners captured by the new regime. His name embodied the terror that was maintained for decades, and more recently the barbarous acts—rape, torture, executions—committed in his country to put down the revolution. All of Libya was waiting for him to explain himself. But Mansour Daw wasn’t talking. At least, that is what Ibrahim Beitalmal, a member of the Misrata Military Council and in charge of the military prisoners, was eager to warn me about when he gave me permission to meet with him.
On Saturday, March 10, 2012, he came into the large meeting hall of a building of the national army in Misrata, looking relaxed—in a khaki jacket, a wool cap on his head—and rested. His white beard was trimmed very short, and an ironic smile played around his lips. He had agreed to the idea of an interview without knowing its topic. Perhaps he saw it as a distraction in his solitary days. “I was in France four times,” he said as an introduction. “It was very nice.” All well and good, but we weren’t here to exchange pleasantries. I told him that I was investigating a subject that was said to be taboo, the sexual crimes of Colonel Gaddafi, and I was hoping he would tell me what he knew about it. “Nothing,” he answered. “I knew nothing. As a member of his family I owed him respect. So there was no question of broaching the subject with him. Besides, I didn’t even let myself look in that direction. Keeping my distance was the best way for me to keep my self-respect. I was protecting myself.”
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