Hanna Gaddafi

Hanna Moammar Gaddafi was reportedly killed at the age of four, during the retaliatory U.S. bombing raids in 1986.^[1][2] She may not have died; the adoption may have been posthumous; or he may have adopted a second daughter and given her the same name after the first one died.^[3] Following the taking by rebels of the family residence in the Bab al-Azizia compound in Tripoli, The New York Times reported evidence (complete with photographs) of Hana's life after her declared death, when she became a doctor and worked in a Tripoli hospital. Her passport was reported as showing a birth date of 11 November 1985, making her six months old at the time of the US raid.^[4] In August 2011 the Daily Telegraph reported on the finding of dental records relating to a Hana Gaddaffi by NLC staff taking over the London embassy. This report, which also cites her 1999 spotting by Chinese officials, cites an unnamed Libyan government spokesman as stating that Gaddafi had adopted a second daughter, and named her Hanna in honor of the first one who had been killed in the 1986 raid.^[5]

In September 2011, the claim that Hanna had been killed in the 1986 bombing was further disputed when a video recorded in 1989 by Gaddafi's cameraman Mohammad Ali was obtained by The Daily Telegraph.^[6] In the video, Muammar and other members of the Gaddafi family refer to her by her name while playing football at a campsite.^[6] It is rumored that Hanna fled to Algeria with her mother and three siblings Mohammed, Hannibal and Ayesha.^[6]

However, in a classified email from Sidney Blumenthal to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Blumenthal noted: "Qaddafi is quite concerned about the security of his family, telling one senior official [of the Libyan Foreign Intelligence Service] that he never recovered from the death of one of his children during the U.S. bombing of Tripoli in April 1986, in retaliation for an ESO attack on US military personnel at a nightclub in Berlin."^[7]

References

Footnotes

1. Cliff Kincaid  —   22 February 2011 (22 February 2011). "See Accuracy in Media article here". Aim.org. Retrieved 25 March 2012.
2. Wong, Curtis (9 August 2011). "Hana Gaddafi, Libyan Leader's Presumed Dead Daughter, May Be Still Alive: Reports". Huffington Post. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
3. Peter Walker (August 26, 2011). "Gaddafi's daughter Hana: dead or a practising doctor?". The Guardian. Retrieved January 28, 2015.
4. Anthony Shadid (27 August 2011). "Enigmatic in Power, Qaddafi Is Elusive at Large". The New York Times.
5. "Dental Records for Hana Gaddafi reopen mystery of Muammar Gaddafi's daughter". The Daily Telegraph (London). 12 August 2011. Retrieved 30 August 2011.
6. "Exclusive: Gaddafi's 'dead' daughter Hanna alive and well in family video". The Daily Telegraph (London). 22 September 2011. Retrieved January 28, 2015.