Libyan rebels investigate Qaddafi son for murder of soccer player

By James M. Dorsey

Libya's rebel Transition National Council (TNC) is investigating ousted Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi"s soccer-playing son, Al Saadi Al Qaddafi,for the 2005 killing of national team player and coach Basheer Al-Ryani.

The investigation, announced by rebel prosecutor Abdullah Banoun at a memorial for Mr. Al-Ryani in Tripoli follows this month's issuing by Interpol of an arrest warrant for Saadi on charges of "misappropriating properties through force and armed intimidation when he headed the Libyan Football Federation." 

The world police body noted that Mr. Qaddafi’s 38-year old son had also been a military commander involved in the brutal crackdown on anti-government demonstrators that sparked the United Nations no-fly zone and NATO intervention. Interpol said that Saadi’s assets had been frozen by the UN and that he was subject to a travel ban by the world body.

Saadi, who is under house arrest in Niamey after fleeing to neighbouring Niger, has denied the charges.

Known as player "number nine" because player's names could not be broadcast by Libyan media during the Qaddafi regime in a bid to ensure that they did not become better known than Saadi or Mr. Qaddafi himself, Mr. Al-Ryani, a prominent Qaddafi critic, was tortured and klilled in 2005.

"Two years before he was killed he told Saadi he was part of a dictatorship and had corrupted Libya. After that he was beaten and left outside his house," Reuters quoted Dr. Hussein Rammali, a former Al-Ryani team mate as saying at this week's memorial. Mr. Al-Ryani is said to have made his remark at a time that he was coaching Tripoli's Al Ahly club, which was owned and captained by Saadi. 

Mr. Rammali said Mr. Al-Ryani's family had last seen him four days before the player's body was delivered to their home at a seaside villa that belonged to Saadi.

The killing of Mr. Al-Ryani is the latest soccer-related atrocity during the Qaddafi regime to come to light. In a country in which the mosque and the soccer pitch were the only release valves for pent-up anger and frustration prior to this month’s protests, Saadi's association with both the national team and Tripoli's Al Ahly meant that the prestige of the regime was on the line whenever the team played. 

As a result, soccer was as much a political match as it was a sports competition in which politics rather than performance often dictated the outcome.

A 2009 US diplomatic cable disclosed by Wikileaks described Mr. Qaddafi junior as “notoriously ill-behaved

League matches were fixed to ensure that Tripoli’s Al Ahli club, which Saadi owned, remained on top to prevent a defeat on the pitch from being viewed as a defeat of the regime. 

A pile of rubble in Benghazi symbolises Libyan leader stands as a sad memorial to the abuse and manipulation of soccer by Middle Eastern and North Africa autocrats.

The rubble is what is left of Mr. Qaddafi junior’s efforts to bury the historic club lock, stock and barrel. Its red and white colors were banned from public display. Scores of its supporters were imprisoned, some of whom were sentenced to death for attempting to subvert the Qaddafis’ rule.

The story of Al Ahly Benghazi stands out as a perverted twist of efforts by Middle Eastern leaders like Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to identify with their national soccer teams in a bid to boost their lingering popularity.

Backed by Saadi, Al Ahly Tripoli blossomed with its financial muscle that allowed it to buy the best players and bribe bully referees and linesmen to rule in its favor.

A little more than a decade ago, Al Ahly fans had enough of Saadi's subversion of the game. They booed him and his team during a national cup final in front of visiting African dignitaries and dressed up a donkey in the colors of Al Ahly Tripoli.

Mr. Qaddafi junior went ballistic.

“I will destroy your club! I will turn it into an owl's nest!” The Los Angeles times quoted Khalifa Binsraiti, Al Ahly Benghazi’s then chairman, who was imprisoned in the subsequent crackdown, as being told by an irate Mr. Qaddafi junior immediately after the match.

A penalty in an Al Ahli Benghazi match against a team from Al-Baydah, the home town of Saadi's mother and the place where this year’s first anti-government demonstrations against corruption in public housing were staged, again so outraged Benghazi fans that they invaded the pitch, forcing the game to be abandoned.

Things came to a head a decade ago when Saadi engineered Al Ahly Benghazi’s relegation to the second division. A referee in a match against Libyan premier league team Al Akhdar sought to ensure Al Ahly’s humiliation by calling a questionable penalty that would have sealed Al Ahly’s disgrace.

Al Ahly’s coach confronted the referee, allegedly shoving him. Militant fans stormed the pitch. The game was suspended and Al Ahly’s fate was sealed.

Al Ahly fans didn’t leave it at that. They headed to downtown Benghazi shouting slogans against Saadi, burnt a likeness of his father and set fire to the local branch of his national soccer federation.

“I was ready to die that day, I was so frustrated,” The Los Angeles Times quotes 48-year old businessman Ali Ali, who was among the enraged crowd, as saying. “We were all ready to die.”

It did not take long for Libyan plainclothes security men to respond. Al Ahly’s 37-hectare clubhouse and facilities were raised to the ground as plainclothesmen visited the homes of protesting soccer fans. Some 80 were arrested of whom 30 for trial to Tripoli on charges of vandalism, destruction of public property and having contacts with Libyan dissidents abroad, a capital offense in Libya.

Three people were sentenced to death, but their penalties were converted to life in prison by the Libyan rule. The three were released after serving five years in prison.

Al Ahli Benghazi was resurrected in 2004, initially as a second-division squad, but later graduated to the country’s premier league.

The story of Al Ahly is a study in the use of soccer by authoritarian Arab regimes to distract attention from economic and political problems and of Arab autocrats’ divide and rule approach to governance.

It is also the untold story of soccer in a swath of land stretching from the Atlantic coast of Africa to the Gulf as a platform of resistance against repression, nepotism and corruption whose fighters graduated to the front lines once mass anti-government protests began sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Interpol issues arrest warrant for Qaddafi son for soccer crimes

Al Saad al Qaddai (Source: Mafiatoday.com)

By James M. Dorsey

World police body Interpol has issued an arrest warrant for ousted Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi’s soccer-playing son, Al Saad al Qaddafi, for alleged crimes committed while he was head of the country's football federation.

Interpol said Al Saadi, who earlier this month fled to Niger, was being sought at the request of the Transition National Council (TNC) "for allegedly misappropriating properties through force and armed intimidation when he headed the Libyan Football Federation."

Interpol’s red notice demands that Al Saadi’s host country arrest him "with a view to returning him to Libya where an arrest warrant for him has been issued."

The world police body noted that Mr. Qaddafi’s 38-year old son had also been a military commander involved in the brutal crackdown on anti-government demonstrators that sparked the United Nations no-fly zone and NATO intervention. Interpol said that Al Saadi’s assets had been frozen by the UN and that he was subject to a travel ban by the world body.

The International Criminal Court in July issued arrest warrants for Mr. Qaddafi himself as well as his second son, Saif al Islam, and his intelligence chief Abdullah al Senoussi.

Niger said earlier this month that it was willing to hand Al Saadi over to a third country but would not return him to Libya. "With regard to (our) international obligations, we cannot send someone back there where he has no chance of receiving a fair trial and where he could face the death penalty," Niger government spokesman Marou Amadou told Agence France Presse.

"On the other hand, if this gentleman or any other person is wanted by an independent court ... which has universal competence over the crimes for which he is pursued, Niger will do its duty," he Mr. Amadou said.

Al Saadi’s soccer ambitions and the brutality with which he exacted revenge for their expressions of dissent set Libya apart in the battled between Arab autocrats and football fans fought on soccer pitches across the Middle East and North Africa.

A 2009 US diplomatic cable disclosed by Wikileaks described Al Saadi as “notoriously ill-behaved.”

Benghazi team Al Ahli played a heavy price for crossing Al Saadi, who not only headed the Libyan soccer federation but also owned the Benghazi team’s Tripoli namesake and arch rival in a country in which sports broadcasters at one point were forbidden to identify players by name to ensure that they did not become more popular than Mr. Qaddafi or Al Saadi, who also captained the Tripoli team.

The story of Al Ahly stands out as a perverted twist of efforts by Middle Eastern leaders like Iranian and Iranian presidents Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Abdullah Ali Saleh and ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak to identify with their national soccer teams in a bid to boost their tarnished images.

In a region in which the mosque and the soccer pitch were prior to the Arab revolt the only release valves for pent-up anger and frustration, Al Saadi’s association with Al Ahly (Tripoli) meant that the prestige of his father’s regime was on the line whenever the team played. As a result, soccer was as much a political match as it was a sports competition in which politics rather than performance often dictated the outcome.

Backed by Al Saadi, Tripoli’s Al Ahly blossomed as a result of financial muscle that allowed it to buy the best players and bribe bully referees and linesmen to rule in its favor.

A little more than a decade ago, Al Ahly fans had enough of Al saadi’s subversion of the game. They booed him and his team during a national cup final in front of visiting African dignitaries and dressed up a donkey in the colours of Tripoli’s Al Ahly.

In response, Al Saadi went ballistic.

“I will destroy your club! I will turn it into an owl's nest!” an irate Al Saadi told Khalifa Binsraiti, Al Ahly Benghazi’s then chairman, immediately after the match, according to The Los Angeles Times. Mr. Binsraiti was one of scores of Al Ahli Benghazi officials and fans who was subsequently arrested.

A penalty in another Al Ahli Benghazi match against a team from Al-Baydah, the home town of Al Saadi’s mother and the place where this year’s first anti-government demonstrations against corruption in public housing were staged, again so outraged Benghazi fans that they invaded the pitch, forcing the game to be abandoned.

Al Saadi penalized Al Ahli Benghazi by engineering the team’s relegation to the second division. The team was relegated after a referee in a match against Libyan premier league team Al Akhdar ensured Al Ahly’s humiliation by calling a questionable penalty.

In response, Al Ahly’s coach confronted the referee, allegedly shoving him. Militant fans stormed the pitch. The game was suspended and Al Ahly’s fate was sealed.

Al Ahly fans didn’t leave it at that. They headed to downtown Benghazi shouting slogans against Al Saadi, burning a likeness of his father and setting fire to the local branch of his national soccer federation.

“I was ready to die that day, I was so frustrated,” The Los Angeles Times quotes 48-year old businessman Ali Ali, who was among the enraged crowd, as saying. “We were all ready to die.”

It did not take long for Libyan plainclothes security men to respond. Al Ahly’s 37-hectare clubhouse and facilities were raised to the ground as plainclothesmen visited the homes of protesting soccer fans. Some 80 were arrested of whom 30 for trial to Tripoli on charges of vandalism, destruction of public property and having contacts with Libyan dissidents abroad, a capital offense in Libya.

Three people were sentenced to death, but their penalties were converted to life in prison by the Libyan rule. The three were released after serving five years in prison.

Public outrage over the retaliation against Benghazi forced Al Saadi to resign as head of the national soccer federation, only to be reinstated by his father in response to the federation’s alleged claim that it needed his son as its leader.

The brutal and demonstrative destruction of Al Ahly kick started Al Saadi junior’s inglorious attempts at making it in Italian soccer.

Al Saadi signed up with the Maltese team Birkirkara, but never showed up. Three years later, he joined Italy’s Perugia but was suspended after only one game for failing a drug test. The incident earned him the reputation of being Italian Series A’s worst ever player.

His dismal record did not stop him from enlisting in 2005 with Italy's Udinese team, where he was relegated to the role of bench warmer except for a 10-minute appearance in an unimportant late-season match.

Libyans joke that Al Saadi is the only soccer player who paid to play rather than was paid to play. Libyan goalkeeper Samir Abboud says Al Saadi was incapable of passing a ball.

The story of Al Saadi and the two Al Ahly teams is a study in the use of soccer by authoritarian Arab regimes to distract attention from economic and political problems and of Arab autocrats’ divide and rule approach to governance.

It is also the untold story of soccer in a swath of land stretching from the Atlantic coast of Africa to the Gulf as a platform of resistance against repression, nepotism and corruption whose fighters graduated to the front lines once mass anti-government protests began sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.

Qaddafi sons: two sides of the same coin?

Al Saadi Al Qaddai (Source: AP/Cultureofsoccer.com) 

By James M. Dorsey

It is hard to fathom that Colonel Moammar Qaddafi’s third son, Al Saadi Al Qaddafi, would truly be any more conciliatory to NATO-backed Libyan rebels who have effectively replaced his father as the country’s rulers, than his older, fire-breathing brother Saif al-Islam, who has vowed to fight to the bitter end.

If Saadi, a man whose brutality as head of the Libyan soccer association as well as a military commander is vividly remembered by many Libyans, surrenders to the rebels, he would be handing them on a silver platter an important psychological and symbolic victory. He would also be fuelling suggestions that there is less cohesion among Mr. Qaddafi’s family and closest associates than Mr. Qaddafi and Said have sought to project. Saadi has said that he wants to avoid further bloodshed that seems likely in the coming days.

For his part, Saif has warned that some 20,000 Qaddafi loyalists will resist a rebel attack on the former Libyan leader’s hometown of Sirte. The rebels have given the defenders of the city an ultimatum until Saturday to lay down their arms or face the consequences.

At face value, Saadi and Saif’s different positions appear to be at best a surprising reversal of roles with Saadi, described in a leaked 2009 US diplomatic cable as “notoriously ill-behaved” with a history of violence playing peacekeeper while Saif, long seen as reforming, pro-Western face of the Qaddafi regime positioning himself as a warmonger.

While there is no way of knowing to what degree the varying positions of the two brothers reflect differences within Mr. Qaddafi’s inner circle, it is not inconceivable that they are two sides of the same coin. The Qaddafis throughout the six-month crisis have simultaneously said that they are willing to negotiate a solution while at the same time denouncing their opponents as rats whom they would fight to the bitter end. Saadi’s notion of a power-sharing arrangement has long been rejected by the rebels who say they will settle for nothing less than the Qaddafi’s complete removal from power.

Saadi, beyond guarantees for his safety by the rebels, can expect little mercy or compassion from the rebels. The man who now says that he would not use arms against fellow Muslims had no compunction about attacking his opponents who employed soccer to denounce his father’s regime and sentencing them to death.

A pile of rubble in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi testifies to the length Saadi was willing to go to abuse the beautiful game as a crutch for the regime. The rubble is what is left of the headquarters of the Al-Ahly Benghazi soccer club.

It tells a story that is extraordinary even by the standards of the bending of the beautiful game to their will by autocratic leaders in the Middle East and North Africa. The story of Al Ahly’s battle with the Qaddafis also goes a long way to explain why Benghazi emerged as the capital of the revolt.

What makes Al-Ahly’s story different from the battle on soccer pitches between autocrats and militant fans elsewhere in the Middle East and North Africa was Saadi’s desperate ambition to be recognized as a top soccer player and the brutality with which he responded to expressions of dissent. To fulfill his ambition, he bought and managed Tripoli’s main soccer club, which like its Benghazi namesake is also called Al Ahly. He also captained and played on its team.

The rubble is what is left of Saadi’s effort to bury Benghazi’s historic club lock, stock and barrel. The club’s red and white colors were banned for several years from public display. 

It was a heavy price to pay for challenging the regime in a country in which sports broadcasters were forbidden to identify players by name to ensure that they did not become more popular or have greater media exposure than Saadi himself. 

The story of Al Ahly stands out as a perverted twist of the abuse of soccer by other Middle Eastern leaders like Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak who publicly identified with their national soccer teams in a bid to boost their lingering popularity.

In a country in which the mosque and the soccer pitch were the only release valves for pent-up anger and frustration prior to revolt against the Qaddafis, Saadi’s association with Al Ahly meant that the prestige of the regime was on the line whenever the team played. 

As a result, soccer was as much a political match as it was a competition in which politics rather than performance often dictated the outcome.

Saadi showed his real face when little more than a decade ago, Al Ahly Benghazi fans had enough of his subversion of the game. They booed him and his team during a national cup final in front of visiting African dignitaries and taunted him by dressing up a donkey in the colors of Al Ahly Tripoli.

Saadi went ballistic.

“I will destroy your club! I will turn it into an owl's nest!” Khalifa Binsraiti, Al Ahly Benghazi’s then chairman, who was imprisoned in the subsequent crackdown, quotes an irate Saadi as telling him immediately after the match in an interview with The Los Angeles Times.

A penalty in another Al Ahli Benghazi match against a team from Al-Baydah, the home town of Saadi’s mother and the place where this year’s first anti-government demonstrations against corruption in public housing were staged, again so outraged Benghazi fans that they invaded the pitch, forcing the game to be abandoned.

Things came to a head when Saadi engineered Al Ahly Benghazi’s relegation to the second division by having a referee in a match against Libyan premier league team Al Akhdar ensure the team’s humiliation by calling a questionable penalty.

Al Ahly’s coach confronted the referee and militant fans stormed the pitch. The game was suspended and Al Ahly’s fate was sealed.

But Al Ahly fans didn’t leave it at that. They headed to downtown Benghazi shouting slogans against Saadi. They burnt a likeness of his father and set fire to the local branch of his national soccer association.

In response, Saadi had Al Ahly’s 37-hectare clubhouse and facilities raised to the ground while plainclothesmen arrested 80 soccer fans of whom 30 were charged with vandalism, destruction of public property and having contacts with Libyan dissidents abroad, a capital offense in Mr. Qaddafi’s Libya. Three were sentenced to death, but their penalties were later converted to life in prison by the Libyan ruler. They were released after serving five years in prison.

Public outrage over the retaliation against Benghazi forced Saadi to resign as head of the national soccer federation, only to be reinstated by his father in response to the federation’s alleged claim that it needed Mr. Qaddafi’s son as its leader.

The rebels, many of them soccer fans from Benghazi, will not have forgotten their humiliation at the hands of Saadi whose campaign against Al Ahly Benghazi is a study in the use of soccer by authoritarian Arab regimes to distract attention from economic and political problems and of Arab autocrats’ divide and rule approach to governance.

Nonetheless, how the rebels treat Saadi should he indeed surrender himself will serve as a litmus test of whether the rebels as Libya’s new authority can ensure that their hard fought struggle to rid the country of the yoke of dictatorship can ensure that it does not descend into a violent and vicious spiral of revenge and retribution.

James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University's S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.