More UK colleges implicated in Libya

In yet another embarrassment for the UK government, the details of links between another son of the Libyan dictator and a British university have been revealed.

The Libyan despotic ruler’s son, Mutassim Qaddafi, was tutored in the UK and took private lessons at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the summer of 2006, the daily Guardian reported.

Four year later Soas, which is part of the University of London, announced a lucrative deal with a Libyan university, said the report.

Another British university had clinched a deal with a Libyan regime ministry to carry out reforms in the country’s prisons system; however, the university failed even to gain access to Libya’s two most notorious jails.

The center of prison studies at King’s College London had won the deal secured by the Qaddafi foundation, the charity led by another of the dictator’s sons, Saif al-Eslam.

The charity had also been at the center of a controversy over donating £1.5 million to the London School of Economics (LSE).

British universities have been heavily criticized in recent days over their links to the Libyan despotic regime. Sir Howard Davies, the LSE’s director, was forced to quit last week over accepting the Qaddafi donation, while an independent inquiry was announced by the university board.

Robert Halfon, Conservative MP for Harlow, called for an independent inquiry into the previous government’s Libyan links. He said in the Commons on Monday that British universities’ links with Libya “were facilitated by the last government and… the fish rots from the head down.”

Qaddafi’s fourth son, Mutassim, 34, attended an English course at Soas, and is currently believed to head a special forces unit which is brutally cracking down on its own country’s people to silence their shouts of freedom and democracy.