TRIPOLI — Deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is reported to have been in the capital Tripoli as late as last Friday and to have gone from there to the southern desert town of Sabha, Britain’s Sky News said yesterday, quoting a 17-year-old bodyguard of his son Khamis.
Gaddafi’s whereabouts have not been known since forces opposed to him captured Tripoli and his 42-year-old rule collapsed a week ago after a six-month uprising backed by Nato and some Arab states.
Sky quoted the unnamed captured bodyguard as saying Gaddafi held a meeting with Khamis at around 1:30pm on Friday in a Tripoli compound that was under heavy fire at the time by anti-Gaddafi forces.
Gaddafi had arrived in a saloon car and was also joined shortly afterwards by his daughter Aisha. “They had a short, short meeting, the boy says. He wasn’t close to them but he could see them very clearly,” said Sky reporter Stuart Ramsay.
“They swapped into a series of Land Cruiser cars and headed off. He spoke to his immediate officer (who said) ‘They’re going to Sabha’.”
Along with Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte, Sabha is one of the few remaining places in Libya where pro-Gaddafi forces are holding out. Aisha is one of three of Gaddafi’s children who, along with his wife, have now been confirmed to have crossed the border into Algeria.
