On November 17, 2006 Mohamed Al Sanussi the son of Gaddafi's brother-in-law Abdullah Senussi, beat two call girls in London so severely that 21 year old Karen Etchebery sustained six broken bones in her face...and he walked away from the charges. I know this is an old story, but it underlines the shear level of brutality that inhabits Gaddafi's inter circle and the West's willingness to look the other way.
The story has recently been resurrected by the Daily Mail, but the story was told by other news agencies back in 2007. Read the sordid tale of brutality, intimidation and complicity below the fold .
Patricia Bech and Karen Etchebery were young beautiful high dollar London call girls who demanded £1000 per hour for their services. One of the men in London who was willing and able to pay them was Mohamed Al Sanussi the boozing playboy son of Abdullah Senussi, Libya’s reported head of intelligence. The Daily Mail describes the 'dates'.
So Ms Etchebery was no innocent by the time they met al-Sanussi, whom she knew only as the son of a wealthy Libyan. She says: ‘He had a sexual relationship with Patricia, not with me, although he would pay us both £1,000 a night to go to his home, a five-storey townhouse behind Harrods. We would play music and dance for him.
‘Most of the time even Patricia didn’t sleep with him, he was always drunk. He didn’t really talk to us, sometimes he wouldn’t even say hello. He would say a few words in English but mostly talk in Arabic to his friends. I think he just wanted us there as decoration.
On November 17, 2006 things took a frightening turn for the worse. Etchebery was already felling sick when the two girls arrived at the four story £450,000 apartment in Bayswater. On this night Al Sanussi had the company of his cousin. Patricia Bech went upstairs with Al Sanussi leaving Karen in the kitchen with the cousin. The cousin started to grope her but she told him no, stop. She admits that on another night she might not have turned down his approaches, but she was feeling ill and decided she wanted to just go home.
From the same Daily Mail article.
Mohammed stood in the doorway and said, “You’re not leaving unless you give me the money back.” We gave him the money, no problem. Then Patricia went to the door and he picked her up and threw her. I saw her head hitting the floor, it bounced three times like a football.
I went to help her. As I bent down to lift up her head, I turned and I just remember hearing the words, “And you.” The next thing I knew I woke up on the other side of the room with blood everywhere. I don’t know how long I was out for, I just remember waking up and using my hands against the wall to try and get up. Eventually, I said to Patricia, “Let’s go,” but she couldn’t move. She was on the floor on all fours. I picked her up with one hand and held my hand over my face with the other. There was so much blood coming from my mouth I couldn’t breathe.
I dragged us to the door but as we tried to leave he wanted to hit me some more. It was only his cousin holding him back that stopped him.
Later that night when police arrested Al Sanussi he was throwing a party with the girl's blood still spattered on the walls.
You would think that it would be an open and shut case, but remember Mohamed Al Sanussi is the son of a very powerful man in the inter most circles of the Gaddafi's regime.
Abdullah Senussi is the epitome of evil. He is believed to have been behind the brutal attack on civilians in Benghazi last month. Via the Independent.
Several reports said government-recruited mercenaries were behind the worst violence including sniper attacks and the use of heavy machine guns. A British-based IT consultant, Ahmed Swelim, 26, originally from Benghazi, said relatives told him the situation had reached "critical point". "People are living in fear since he [Mr Gaddafi] brought in African mercenaries. They are dressing as normal people but doing random killings. They will shoot or cut people's hands off. The whole city is erupting. People went out to protest peacefully. They want an end to this oppression. The death toll is much higher than reported. There are more than 200 dead. My cousin, a doctor at a main hospital, has seen the bodies. There are more than 1,000 injured."
The Guardian outlines a long career of violence and murder. In the 1980's he lead an intelligence agency that killed many of Gaddafi's opponents. Abdullah has been linked to the Lockerbie bombing and was tried and found guilt in absentia in France in 1999 for his role in the 1989 bombing of a UTA passenger plane over Niger which killed 170 people.
US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks describe him as a confidant of the leader who also makes "many of his medical arrangements". Like other senior Libyan figures Senussi has extensive private business interests. Libyan, Arab and western sources describe Senussi as a thuggish figure who would personally beat and abuse prisoners. "He is the eyes and ears of and Gaddafi and his enforcer," said one North African source who knows the regime well.
But back to his son.
The 2007 trial was set at the time BP was negotiating with Libya over oil and gas rights, so when Libya compained (The Times) about the up coming trial, it went all the way to Tony Blair's ears.
A security source said that the Libyans had made private approaches to the British government to try to stop the case going to court. Gadaffi is also said to have raised the matter with Tony Blair during the former prime minister’s trip to Tripoli two months ago. The government is understood to have rebuffed the approaches.
However, Judge David Martineau agreed to impose a gagging order to ban any mention of Sanussi’s Libyan nationality during the case. As a result, it received no publicity.
Ten days into the trial Etchebery withdrew from the case after it was reported that the defense had a video tape of the girls outlining what services they provided. The judge instructed the jury to acquit Mohamed Al Sanussi. Or so it was reported at the time.
Today Etchebery tells a different story, a story of intimidation and not so veiled threats. From the recent Daily Mail article.
She says: ‘If I went anywhere, people would take pictures, they’d brush past me in the street and say, “Go home”. If I crossed the road a Range Rover would come towards me and pretend to try and run me over. Different people would call and say, “It would be very easy to finish you off. Another accident could happen to you very easily.”
There were lots of different men. They always gave their names although I’m sure they weren’t their real ones. One time they got a girl called Maria, who could speak Portuguese, to talk to me.
Patricia took me out one night to try and mend our friendship which had broken down. Someone called the next day and said, “I could have poisoned your drink last night.”
They knew things even I didn’t know. They went to my auntie’s house in Brazil. Even I didn’t know her address. They went to my cousin’s as well. They went to the spa where my brother works in London. It was so stressful, I started taking antidepressants.
One time a man said, “You know you’re dealing with terrorist people.” It made sense, there was something not normal there. They were too powerful.
She now claims that she dropped the case not because of the video tape, but because of a threat to her mother.
She says: ‘They dealt with Patricia’s evidence first. That took about a week and then they moved on to me. I told them everything that had happened but then, on about the third day, I got a call and someone said, “I’m outside your mother’s house. Do you want to collapse the case?” I called the policewoman handling my case and said, “Please help me. They’re in front of my mother’s house.” She said, “Tell your family to call the local police. I cannot do anything from here.”
I said, “OK, thank you very much. I want to collapse the case, I’m not going to be there tomorrow morning.” The intimidation was too much and they weren’t helping me. The policewoman went mad and said I could go to jail. I said I still wasn’t going and she told me to be at Belgravia police station the next day.
So there is the tale of two British escorts who happened to cross paths with Gaddafi's "ahl al-Khaimah" (people of the tent) – his very closest entourage. These people have no regard for life. They kill people like they were bugs with no remorse. They feel they are above the laws that they will execute the people of Libya for.