The following are excerpts from a Washington Post interview with Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi.
Middle East and North Africa in turmoil
On an international conspiracy to destabilize Libya:
“But you know what happened exactly? Maybe we will say this for the first time. On that Sunday, it was on [February] 17th, you know what happened? Libyans heard the British foreign minister say Gaddafi is on his way to Venezuela. Al-Jazeera breaking news, ‘Gaddafi left the country,’ and then another breaking news, ‘Saif got killed. His brother killed me.’ You know the story. It was two famous breaking news. ‘My father left the country. I got killed.’ It was a big conspiracy. We captured them now. They recruited some people here in the Libyan Post and Telecommunications Company, they created a false traffic, like millions of channels. Everything is fake. The whole network went down. You heard about the shutdown? You know, even my friends left the country at the time. You know why, because they said ‘Libyan TV was so stupid, playing music’. Jazeera breaking news, ‘the British foreign minister said Gaddafi left the country, Saif got killed,’ the network got shut down, the phone network got shut down, so everything is over. That’s why people, police escaped, soldiers escaped, and everyone went back home. And then you got those people who went to attack the ammunition sites, military barracks, and stole the ammunition, the arms and start the armed revolt. So everything was orchestrated. But now people are waking up.
“Our intention is not to kill people, we want to build our country, we want to live in peace, we want law and order. It is not in the interests of anybody to see chaos in Libya. But unfortunately Arabic countries like Qatar, they are playing this role.”
On why he thinks the U.N. Security Council was wrong:
“Even the Security Council resolution was based on — what? Based on the Libyan air force is bombing Tripoli, and bombing Tajoura and Fashloom, two districts [in the capital]. They mentioned two districts. Show me one trace, one evidence that we bombarded Tajoura. Zero. We took the diplomats, the journalists, they went there. So now you have an embargo, you are bombing us, you are killing us every day, we have sanctions from the U.N., based on what? Based on rumors. Because they said the Libyan air force is bombing Tripoli, districts in Tripoli, killing thousands. So you go there and ask anybody. So everything was based on rumors. It’s exactly like the WMD. WMD, WMD, WMD, go and attack Iraq. Now, civilians, civilians, civilians, go and attack Libya. It’s the same thing, it’s a repetition of history.”
On YouTube videos of protesters being shot in Tripoli:
“They played this video, a very famous one. This happened one year ago, in the city of Ras Lanuf. It was summertime, people were wearing T-shirts. And they are talking about winter time. That film was shot one year [ago] in the city of Ras Lanuf. It was a problem between two tribes fighting for a new housing project.”
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