Britain cuts diplomatic ties. Jan - U. President Ronald Reagan orders halt to economic and commercial relations with Libya, freezes Libyan assets in the United States. In , France convicts six Libyans in absentia, but Tripoli denies responsibility.
Megrahi given mandatory life sentence. When the winds of revolt started to blow through the Arab world from Tunisia in December , Libya was not at the top of most people's list of "who's next". Gaddafi fitted the bill as an authoritarian ruler who had endured for more years than the vast majority of his citizens could remember.
But he was not so widely perceived as a western lackey as other Arab leaders, accused of putting outside interests before the interests of their own people. He had redistributed wealth - although the enrichment of his own family from oil revenues and other deals was hard to ignore and redistribution was undertaken more in the spirit of buying loyalty than promoting equality. He sponsored grand public works, such as the improbable Great Man-Made River project , a massive endeavour inspired, perhaps, by ancient Bedouin water procurement techniques, that brought sweet, fresh water from aquifers in the south to the arid north of his country.
There was even something of a Tripoli Spring, with long-term exiles given to understand that they could return without facing persecution or jail. When the first calls for a Libyan "day of rage" were circulated, Gaddafi pledged - apparently in all seriousness - to protest with the people, in keeping with his myth of being the "brother leader of the revolution" who had long ago relinquished power to the people.
As it turned out, the scent of freedom and the draw of possibly toppling the colonel, just as Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali had been toppled, was too strong to resist among parts of the Libyan population, especially in the east. Some of the first footage of rebellion to come out of Benghazi showed incensed young Libyans outside an official building smashing up a green monolith representing the spurious liberation doctrine that had kept them enslaved since the s - the Green Book.
As the uprising spread, and the seriousness of the threat to his rule became apparent, Gaddafi showed he had lost none of the ruthlessness directed against dissidents and exiles in the s and s. This time it was turned on whole towns and cities where people had dared to tear down his posters and call for his downfall. Regular troops and mercenaries nearly overwhelmed the rag-tag rebels, consisting of military deserters and ill-trained militiamen brought together under the banner of the National Transitional Council NTC.
The colonel could afford to dismiss them as wayward year-olds, "given pills at night, hallucinatory pills in their drinks, their milk, their coffee, their Nescafe". The intervention of Nato on the rebels' side in March, authorised by a UN resolution calling for the protection of civilians, prevented their seemingly imminent annihilation - but it was months before they could turn the situation to their advantage.
Then came the fall of Tripoli and Gaddafi went into hiding, still claiming his people were behind him and promising success against the "occupiers" and "collaborators". His dictatorial regime had finally crumbled, but many feared that he might remain at large to orchestrate an insurgency. He met his ignominious and grisly end, when NTC forces found him hiding in a tunnel following a Nato air strike on his convoy as he tried to make a break from his last stronghold, the city of Sirte, where it had all begun.
The exact circumstances of his death remain in dispute, either "killed in crossfire", summarily executed, or lynched and dragged through the streets by jubilant, battle-hardened fighters.
Though it meant the Libyan people - and other victims around the world - were robbed of proper justice, the news sparked wild celebrations across his former domain that nearly 42 years of rule and misrule had truly come to a close.
Early promise. Qaddafi claimed that Libya boasted popular committees and shared ownership, but in reality this was far from true. Qaddafi had appointed himself or close family and friends to all positions of power, and their corruption and crackdowns on any kind of civic organizing meant much of the population lived in poverty. Meanwhile, Qaddafi and those close to him were amassing fortunes in oil revenue while the regime murdered those it deemed as dissidents.
Qaddafi's ruling style was not just oppressive, it was eccentric. He had a cadre of female bodyguards in heels, considered himself the king of Africa, erected a tent to stay in when he traveled abroad, and dressed in strange costume-like outfits.
His bizarre antics often distracted from his brutality, and earned him the nickname "the mad dog of the Middle East. In addition to his destructive rule at home, Qaddafi was despised by much of the international community. His government was implicated in the financing of many anti-Western groups around the world, including some terror plots. The Irish Republican Army allegedly had links to Qaddafi. Because of the regime's links to Irish terrorism, the United Kingdom cut off diplomatic relations with Libya for more than a decade.
In , Libyan terrorists were thought to be behind the bombing of a West Berlin dance club that killed three and injured scores of people. The United States in turn, under President Ronald Reagan's administration, bombed specific targets in Libya that included Qaddafi's residence in Tripoli. In the most famous instance of the country's connection to terrorism, Libya was implicated in the Lockerbie bombing. A plane carrying people blew up near Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all on board, with falling debris killing 11 civilians on the ground.
Libyan terrorists, including an in-law of Qaddafi's, were also believed to be behind the destruction of a French passenger jet in , killing all on board. In s, the relationship between Qaddafi and the West began to thaw.
As Qaddafi faced a growing threat from Islamists who opposed his rule, he began to share information with the British and American intelligence services. In , Nelson Mandela persuaded the Libyan leader to hand over the suspects from the Lockerbie bombing. It wasn't long before Qaddafi had mended relations with the West on many fronts. Qaddafi was welcomed in Western capitals, and Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi counted him among his close friends.
Qaddafi's son and heir apparent, Seif al-Islam Qaddafi, mixed with London's high society for several years. Many critics of the newfound friendship of Qaddafi and the West believed it was based on business and access to oil.
In , the United Nations eased sanctions on Libya, and foreign oil companies worked out lucrative new contracts to operate in the country. The influx of money to Libya made Qaddafi, his family and his associates even wealthier. The delegates chose a list of candidates in a U. Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibah, a powerful businessman backed by western tribes, was chosen as interim prime minister. The Libyan uprising began in to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi and was fought between forces loyal to the president and foreign-supported troops.
Gaddafi was killed in November and Tripoli came under the control of a foreign-backed group. Libya later split into two warring rival governments with their own militias, mercenaries, and foreign backers. Since October they have upheld a ceasefire.
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