In , France convicts six Libyans in absentia, but Tripoli denies responsibility. Megrahi given mandatory life sentence. Sept - U. Security Council votes unanimously to lift sanctions imposed on Libya in after Libya accepted responsibility for the Lockerbie bombing. Jan - Lawmakers arrive on the first visit by a U. The model that was created in reality was an ultra-hierarchical pyramid - with the Gaddafi family and close allies at the top wielding power unchecked, protected by a brutal security apparatus.
In the parallel world of the Green Book, the system is called a Jamahiriyya - a neologism that plays on the Arabic word for a republic, Jumhuriyya, implying "rule by the masses".
So the long-suffering Libyan masses were dragooned into attending popular congresses vested with no power, authority or budgets, with the knowledge that anyone who spoke out of turn and criticised the regime could be carted off to prison.
A set of draconian laws was enacted in the name of upholding security, further undermining the colonel's claim to a champion of freedom from oppression and dictatorship. Legal penalties included collective punishment, death for anyone who spread theories aiming to change the constitution and life imprisonment for disseminating information that tarnished the country's reputation.
Tales abounded of torture, lengthy jail terms without a fair trial, executions and disappearances. Many of Libya's most educated and qualified citizens chose exile, rather than pay lip service to the lunacy. Unchecked by any of the normal restraints of governance, Gaddafi was able to take his anti-imperialist campaign around the world, funding and supporting militant groups and resistance movements wherever he found them. He also targeted Libyan exiles, dozens of whom were killed by assassins believed to belong to a global Libyan intelligence network.
If governments were prepared to shrug off Gaddafi's human rights violations in Libya, and persecution of dissidents abroad, it was a different matter when it came to him supporting groups that used terrorism on their own patches.
A bombing of a nightclub used by US soldiers in Berlin in , blamed on Libyan agents, proved a decisive moment. US President Ronald Reagan ordered air strikes against Tripoli and Benghazi in retaliation for the two soldiers and one civilian killed and the dozens of wounded, although there was no conclusive proof beyond intelligence "chatter" that Libya had ordered the attack.
The US retaliation was intended to kill the "mad dog of the Middle East", as Mr Reagan branded him, but although there was extensive damage and an unknown number of Libyan fatalities - including, it was claimed, Gaddafi's adopted daughter - the colonel emerged unscathed. His reputation may even have been enhanced among opponents of Washington's heavy-handed foreign policy.
The bombing of Pan-Am flight over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in was the next significant escalation, causing the deaths of people in the air and on the ground, the worst single act of terrorism ever witnessed in the UK.
Gaddafi's initial refusal to hand over the two Libyan suspects to Scottish jurisdiction resulted in a protracted period of negotiations and UN sanctions, finally ending in with their surrender and trial. One of the men, Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, was jailed for life, but the other was found not guilty. The resolution of the Lockerbie case, along with Gaddafi's subsequent admission and renunciation of a covert nuclear and chemical weapons programme, paved the way for a significant warming of relations between Tripoli and western powers in the 21st century.
The domestication of the erstwhile "mad dog" was held up as one of the few positive results of US President George W Bush's military invasion of Iraq in The argument went that Gaddafi had watched the fate of fellow miscreant Saddam Hussein, hanged by Iraqis after a US-instigated legal process, and had learnt a sobering lesson.
The Irish Republican Army allegedly had links to Qaddafi. Because of the regime's links to Irish terrorism, the United Kingdom cut off diplomatic relations with Libya for more than a decade.
In , Libyan terrorists were thought to be behind the bombing of a West Berlin dance club that killed three and injured scores of people. The United States in turn, under President Ronald Reagan's administration, bombed specific targets in Libya that included Qaddafi's residence in Tripoli. In the most famous instance of the country's connection to terrorism, Libya was implicated in the Lockerbie bombing. A plane carrying people blew up near Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all on board, with falling debris killing 11 civilians on the ground.
Libyan terrorists, including an in-law of Qaddafi's, were also believed to be behind the destruction of a French passenger jet in , killing all on board. In s, the relationship between Qaddafi and the West began to thaw. As Qaddafi faced a growing threat from Islamists who opposed his rule, he began to share information with the British and American intelligence services.
In , Nelson Mandela persuaded the Libyan leader to hand over the suspects from the Lockerbie bombing. It wasn't long before Qaddafi had mended relations with the West on many fronts. Qaddafi was welcomed in Western capitals, and Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi counted him among his close friends. Qaddafi's son and heir apparent, Seif al-Islam Qaddafi, mixed with London's high society for several years.
Many critics of the newfound friendship of Qaddafi and the West believed it was based on business and access to oil. In , the United Nations eased sanctions on Libya, and foreign oil companies worked out lucrative new contracts to operate in the country. The influx of money to Libya made Qaddafi, his family and his associates even wealthier. The disparity between the ruling family and the masses became ever more apparent.
After more than four decades in power, Qaddafi's downfall happened in less than a year. The next month, Egyptian ruler Hosni Mubarak was forced out, providing a morale boost to protesters in several Arab capitals. Despite the atmosphere of severe repression, demonstrations broke out in the city of Benghazi and spread throughout Libya. Qaddafi used aggressive force to try to suppress the protests, and the violence quickly escalated. Police and foreign mercenaries were brought in to shoot at protesters, and helicopters were sent to bombard citizens from the air.
As casualties mounted, Libyans grew more determined to see Qaddafi's ouster. As violence spread through the country, Qaddafi made several rambling speeches on state television, claiming the demonstrators were traitors, foreigners, al-Qaeda and drug addicts.
He was 27 years old, inspired by Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser and he seemed to fit the regional template of Arab nationalist from the military becoming president. But he outlasted his contemporaries. During nearly 42 years in power he invented his own system of government, supported radical armed groups as diverse as the IRA in Northern Ireland and the Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, and presided over what may have been North Africa's most totalitarian, arbitrary and brutal regime.
In the last years of his rule, Libya emerged from the international isolation that followed the bombing of Pan Am flight over Lockerbie in Scotland in December The country was once again courted by Western governments and companies drawn to its vast energy reserves and the rich contracts on offer in an ambitious infrastructure programme.
The uprising that eventually overthrew him started in February in Libya's second city Benghazi, a city he had neglected and whose residents he mistrusted throughout his rule. Col Gaddafi was born to a Bedouin family in Sirte in He always played on his humble, tribal roots, preferring to greet visitors in his tent, and to pitch it when on foreign visits.
His legitimacy depended on his anti-colonialist credentials at first, and then on keeping the country in perpetual revolution.
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