Emma Cowing: Dictator’s daughter faces judgment day

In the bloody and brutal fall of the Gaddafi regime, I dread to think of the fate of these women, some of whom were as young as 14.

Thanks to the Algerian authorities, however, we do know the fate, or at least the whereabouts, of one of their idols – Libya’s most powerful woman. Aisha Gaddafi, the daughter of the fallen dictator, is believed to have arrived in the country last week, where she remains in relative safety.

Once referred to as the Claudia Schiffer of Africa, tall, blonde, 34-year-old Aisha is not just a pretty face. A trained lawyer who was part of Saddam Hussein’s defence team, in June, around the same time as these women were being herded on to the front-line like sacred lambs to the slaughter, Aisha was busy filing lawsuits in Paris and Brussels claiming war crimes against Libya by Nato.

Instrumental in the conflict in Libya since it started, she was pictured in March on the front-line, rallying troops in the fight against the rebels, and a few days ago she was quoted as telling a reporter in a phone call that the war was “an illegal occupation of the international fascists with the collaboration of some local betrayers to loot Libya’s wealth and oil resources”.

The role of women in the Gaddafi regime has often seemed a murky one. There were the legendary female bodyguards, who now say they were abused and raped by Gaddafi. (They were made to swear oaths of virginity and had to be dressed in camouflage with nail polish, coiffed hair, and heavy mascara, while expected to take bullets for the dicatator – one did, and died.)

Women in Libya are allowed to work, but many have viewed Gaddafi’s decision to allow this merely as a way of freeing up cheap labour.

Aisha was an exception. Smart and privileged, she trained in the Libyan army as a young woman, rising to the rank of lieutenant-general. She then trained as a lawyer, and famously helped to defend – unsuccessfully of course – the fallen dictator of Iraq.

Since then, she has got herself involved in a number of operations both in Libya and on the international scene, where – like her brother Saif al-Islam – she has become a familiar face. Most high-profile was her appointment in 2009 as a UN goodwill ambassador to address the issues of Aids, poverty and women’s rights.

Yes, that’s correct. the UN appointed virtually the only woman in Libya with any rights at all to campaign on behalf of the rest of them.

Forgive me if I sound a note of scepticism here, but unless she was planning on asking her father to adopt every woman in Libya, it is hard to see how the majority of the country’s womenfolk would have benefited from her campaigning.

Where was she when those 500 young women were sent to fight to the death with barely any training at all? Where was she when her father’s own bodyguards accused him of raping them? Was she merely protecting her own rights?

None of us, of course, has a true insight into what it must be like to grow up as the child of a dictator, to be told from birth that you are special, and privileged. But at some point, you must make a choice as to whether you choose to reject that life, or hold on to it and use it to your advantage.

Gaddafi is guilty of crimes against humanity. But his family too – his wife, his sons and his daughter, who colluded in those crimes – must also bear some responsibility for their own despicable actions when they are finally brought to justice.

When rebels gained access last week to Aisha’s own luxurious palace, they found, taking pride of place in the huge hallway, a golden statue in her own likeness.

It seems she had already made her choice.