Aisha Gaddafi speaks on April 14, 2006 in Tripoli. (KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images)[/caption]Various newspapers and websites recently revealed—some sensationally and others less excitedly—that the Sultanate of Oman had granted political asylum to four members of the family of the late dictator Muammar Al-Gaddafi on humanitarian grounds. This occurred sometime in the autumn of 2012, and the Omani government were paying for the Gaddafis’ upkeep. (For London's Daily Mail, a mid-market tabloid, the “offense” was somehow compounded by the presence of the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall.)
Waxing righteously about “all members of the family having deeply controversial pasts,” the Mail then detailed how Hannibal Al-Gaddafi is allegedly a wife-beater, while his sister Aisha, “a qualified lawyer, notoriously defended dictators like her father around the world, including deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.” (The Mail missed the principle that a failure to defend the worst criminals properly makes democratic courts little better than a kangaroo court, as demonstrated by former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who also defended Saddam.) Of Muhammad and the widow Safia, the Mail is unable to say anything particularly damning—the ultimate insult! Perhaps, the Mail is confusing these with other children—Saif Al-Islam, Khamis and Mu'tassim—who were more deeply steeped in their father’s evil.
But why would “British Ally Oman” take in such riff-raff? For a start, many Middle Eastern countries have a long custom of offering sanctuary to former rulers, particularly of their neighbors. Famously, Abd Al-Aziz Ibn Saud, the founder of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, was a refugee in Kuwait. Such refuge is not always entirely altruistic: sometimes, the “guest” is prompted to make a public statement that unsettles their native country’s new ruler, who has usually just irritated the host. Sometimes the refuge is even more active: Ibn Saud was lent men and weapons by the Emir of Kuwait to retake Diriyyah from their mutual enemy, the Rawashid, in 1902. The UK, French and other governments also have long histories of hosting future and past dictators, albeit not of quite the same level as Gaddafi, but then these are his family. The bottom line is that if they are not to be held indefinitely without trial—something civilized countries stopped after the Magna Carta—then they must live somewhere.
Probably because of the more generous stipends offered by the Saudis, many forcibly retired Arab dictators take refuge in Jeddah. In the case of Libya, however, Gaddafi had irritated the Saudi royal family, partly by his irreverent attitude towards them, and partly due to the small matter of an alleged assassination plot in 2004, so Jeddah was not an option for Gaddafi as it was for Ben Ali or Idi Amin.
After the probable killing of the revered Shi'ite Ayatollah Musa Al-Sadr in 1978, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon were ruled out as refuges for Gaddafi and his family, too. While there have been rumors of Muammar’s Jewish ancestry (and Saif Al-Islam’s Jewish–Israeli girlfriend), it is doubtful that the rest of his family would have been comfortable—or permitted—asylum in Israel. Similarly, while Muammar may have been an Africanist (when it suited him) and narcissistically reveled in the title “King of Kings,” his family are firmly Arab, so Zimbabwe was not an option for them, although it had been seen as a potential refuge for Colonel Gaddafi, as it has been for Colonel Mengistu.
So why would Oman help? Mostly because no one else would. They did the same with the Socialist Ali Salim Al-Beidh (formerly President of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, or PDRY) in 1994, after his disastrous attempt to secede from his incompetently managed unification with the Yemen Arab Republic went spectacularly wrong. Saudi Arabia would not take Beidh, but even though Oman had suffered years of violence by the PDRY-sponsored Popular Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf (usually known by its catchy acronym, PFLOAG), they provided him with refuge—until he broke his parole and started politicking again.
It is also worth noting that whatever else his many faults, Muammar Al-Gaddafi did not actively persecute the five to ten percent of the Libyan population (particularly around Jabal Nafusa) who belong to the Ibadhi sect–the same mathhab (doctrine) to which many Omanis adhere.
It may be avowedly incomprehensible to the crusading Daily Mail, but the sultan has shown a moment of compassion which Gaddafi did not. His guests are probably bitter at having to accept hospitality, but better in a studiously neutral place like Oman. While they may yet abuse Oman’s discreet asylum by railing against Fate, if they are sensible, Muammar Al-Gaddafi’s family will fade into obscurity and live out their lives more peacefully than many Libyan families were granted.
