The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between

by Hisham Matar

This was in the years after 2004, when Tony Blair had gone to Libya and stood shaking hands with Muammar Qaddafi. Ziad called me that afternoon. “Now we have lost everything,” he said. The dictatorship became more powerful than ever before. Some of its worst criminals began to buy houses in London. Qaddafi’s spymaster, Moussa Koussa—who, in 1980, had been expelled from Britain after advocating strong support, in an interview in The Times, for Libya’s policy of assassinating opponents abroad—was now a regular visitor. Following Tony Blair’s visit, the British capital became the number one place from which the Libyan secret service could monitor Libyans abroad. Britain helped to deliver dissidents to Tripoli. The Libyan Investment Authority, a corrupt institution that claimed to manage the national wealth, was based in London. The LIA purchased hotels, real estate and various investments, often in the names of individuals from the Qaddafi inner circle. Noted and powerful British financiers were board members. The dictator’s son and heir apparent, Seif el-Islam Qaddafi, became the darling of the British establishment. The London School of Economics awarded him a PhD, which later turned out to be fraudulent. Several British academics, politicians, lawyers and public relations agencies began working hard at washing the blood off the Libyan regime. None of us felt safe.