Leading figures of the deposed government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi continued to flee from Libya or surface in rebel custody on Sunday, including one of Colonel Qaddafi’s sons, as the de facto government announced new steps toward restarting the economy and bringing the country under its full control.
Saadi el-Qaddafi’s flight from Libya represents a special kind of capitulation. As the Qaddafis pulled together to battle the uprising threatening their power, Saadi was the one member of the family who styled himself a peacemaker. He was the family’s lost soul, a playboy in his youth who was perpetually upstaged by his ambitious older brother Seif al-Islam. He dabbled with careers in soccer, engineering, the military, Hollywood film production and, most recently, real estate development.
On the day the uprising broke out in Benghazi, Saadi was touring the city as an emissary from his father to its alienated citizens. A person who was with him that day said he kept trying in vain to mollify residents with assurances of development or other help from his father.
After Tripoli fell and the family went into hiding, an associate said, Saadi continued to hope that he could broker a peace agreement or unity government to forestall more bloodshed. He initially presented himself as negotiating on behalf of the family, said his associate and rebels who talked to him. Then, when his brother Seif al-Islam continued to issue fantastic and bellicose statements about a Qaddafi resurgence, Saadi said he was negotiating only on his own behalf.
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