Al-Saadi Gaddafi

Gaddafi is married to the daughter of al-Khweildi al-Hmeidi, a Libyan military commander who was involved in the 1969 Libyan coup d'état that brought Gaddafi to power.

He also stated that he was looking for a lawyer to fight the travel ban against him levied by UN Security Council Resolution 1970.

Al-Saadi Muammar Gaddafi, also spelt as Al-Saadi Moammer Al-Gaddafi (الساعدي معمر القذافي; born 25 May 1973), is a Libyan retired professional football player.

He captained the national team, but his career was widely attributed to the influence of his father Muammar Gaddafi, the country's leader at the time.

On 6 June 2000, the BBC reported that Gaddafi had signed with Maltese champions Birkirkara F.C. and would play for them in the Champions League.

The move failed to materialize.

In 2003, he signed for Italian Serie A team Perugia, employing Diego Maradona as his technical consultant and Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson as his personal trainer.

He made only one substitute appearance against Juventus for Perugia before failing a drug test, due to presence in his system of the illegal substance Nandrolone.

An article in la Repubblica said that "Even at twice his current speed he would still be twice as slow as slow itself."

He was also captain of the Libya national football team, captain of his home club in Tripoli, and president of the Libyan Football Federation.

Gaddafi joined UEFA Champions League qualifiers Udinese Calcio in 2005–06, playing only 10 minutes in an end-of-season league match against Cagliari Calcio.

He joined U.C. Sampdoria during season 2006–07, without playing a single match.

In 2006, Al-Saadi Gaddafi and the Jamahiriya government launched a project to create a semi-autonomous city similar to Hong Kong in Libya, stretching 40 km between Tripoli and the Tunisian border.

The proposed new city would become a high tech, banking, medical and educational center not requiring visas to enter.

The city would have its own international airport and a major seaport.

Gaddafi promised religious tolerance with both "synagogues and churches" and no discrimination in this new metropolis.

The new city would have "Western-style" business laws that Saadi thought European and American companies would find welcoming and familiar.

Gaddafi used to take great interest in the affairs of many of Libya's other business interests like Tamoil, the oil refining and marketing company owned by the Libyan government, before the overthrow of the regime.

SNC-Lavalin also allegedly paid over $2 million for Saadi's 2008 visit to Canada, including bodyguards, companion services, $10,000 to an escort service in Vancouver, a strip club in Montreal, and box seats for a Spice Girls concert at the Air Canada Center in Toronto.

He was released in September 2021 and left for Turkey.

Gaddafi is known for his participation in Libyan football, which was arranged in his favour.

One law forbade announcing the name of any football player with the exception of Gaddafi.

Only numbers of other players were announced.

Referees favoured Gaddafi's club and security forces were used to silence protests.

In 2009, a U.S. diplomatic cable called Gaddafi "the black sheep" of Muammar Gaddafi's family.

It mentioned scuffles with European police, "abuse of drugs and alcohol, excessive partying" and "profligate affairs with women and men".

Gaddafi's bisexuality had partly prompted the arrangement of his marriage to the commander's daughter, the cable said.

Saadi was having a relationship with Bulgarian national Dafinka Mircheva.

In July 2010, Gaddafi was ordered by an Italian court to pay €392,000 to a luxurious Ligurian hotel for an unpaid bill dating back to a month-long stay in the summer of 2007.

In 2011, Gaddafi was the commander of Libya's Special Forces and participated in the Libyan Civil War.

An Interpol notice was issued against him in 2011.

After the Battle of Tripoli in 2011, Saadi's former teammate at Al Ahly Tripoli and close friend, Reda Al Tawarghi, alleged that Saadi had jailed him for 2 1⁄2 years for rejecting his homosexual advances.

On 27 February 2011, Saadi was interviewed by Christiane Amanpour on ABC News, where he warned of imminent civil war and that if his father left Libya, the power vacuum would only lead to more chaos.

On 15 March 2011, there were unconfirmed reports that a pilot by the name of Muhammad Mokhtar Osman had flown his jet into the Gaddafi stronghold of Bab al-Azizia in Tripoli damaging it and injuring him and his brother Khamis.

Speaking to BBC Panorama, a former Jamahiriya soldier claimed that Gaddafi had personally ordered to shoot unarmed protesters in Benghazi when visiting the city's army barracks at the beginning of the uprising.

Gaddafi confirmed that he had been at the barracks but denied giving orders to fire on protesters.

In March 2014, he was arrested in Niger and extradited to Libya, where he faced murder charges, which he was cleared of in 2018.

In August 2015, a video surfaced allegedly showing him being tortured.

He was a central figure in the SNC-Lavalin scandal in Canada.

In 2019, SNC-Lavalin, Canada's biggest engineering firm, pled guilty to paying Saadi $28 million in bribes to secure construction contracts in Libya.