Plot to Smuggle Qaddafi’s Son Into Mexico Disrupted, Officials Say

Plot to Smuggle Qaddafi’s Son Into Mexico Disrupted, Officials Say
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD - New York Times
Published: December 7, 2011

MEXICO CITY — The Mexican government said Wednesday that it had broken up a plot to smuggle into Mexico one of the sons of the former Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, and hide him and his family at a Pacific beach resort.

Alejandro Poire, the interior minister, said the elaborate plan to bring in the son, Saadi Qaddafi, had been uncovered by Mexican intelligence agents and had resulted in the arrest of several conspirators, including two Mexicans, a Canadian and a Dane.

Mr. Poire said Mr. Qaddafi, who fled Libya in September to Niger as his father’s regime crumbled, and his family were going to receive false documents identifying them as Mexican and live in a house that already had been acquired.

He spoke the day after a Canadian newspaper, the National Post, published a detailed article on the plan, saying a Canadian security company had helped in the arrangements to bring Mr. Qaddafi to a “multimillion-dollar refuge” at Punta Mita in Nayarit State favored by celebrities.

Mr. Poire said the plan called for contracting private flights in Mexico, the Untied States, Canada, Kosovo and several Mideast countries.

It was unclear where the money for the safehouse would come from; the United Nations had frozen the family’s assets and the Mexican government said Mr. Qaddafi faced an Interpol warrant related to his role leading military units fighting the uprising.

Mr. Qaddafi has a reputation among his father’s children as an international playboy who dabbled in many careers, including Hollywood film production. As his father’s power eroded in the rebellion, Mr. Qaddafi portrayed himself as a peacemaker, offering at one point to negotiate with rebels.

Mexico said it had detected the plot on Sept. 6 and made arrests on Nov. 10 and 11, calling the law enforcement effort to break up the conspiracy “Operation Guest.” It identified those in custody as Cynthia Ann Vanier, a Canadian who was leader of the group and the direct contact with the Qaddafi family, in charge of financial arrangements; Gabriela Dávila Huerta, who also used the last name de Cueto, a Mexican with United States residency, who was a link to document forgers; Pierre Christian Flensborg, a Danish citizen, who was handling logistics; and José Luis Kennedy Prieto, a Mexican citizen in charge of getting false documents.

“Avoiding the illegal entry of Saadi Qaddafi to our country constitutes, beyond a doubt, another sign of the capability of Mexican institutions to safeguard the integrity of our national territory,” Mr. Poire said.

Mexico is better known for opaque investigations and police forces infiltrated by criminal groups, but this is the second time in the past two months that it has sought to celebrate a triumph in international investigations. In October, it announced its role in denying entry and returning to the United States an Iranian-American man charged with seeking the help of drug cartels to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington.

Col. Qaddafi, one of the Arab world’s longest-serving autocrats, was killed on Oct. 20 after he was captured by opposition militia members who had besieged his final stronghold in the Mediterranean enclave of Surt in the final days of the Libyan revolution, the most violent of the Arab Spring uprisings.

Of Col. Qaddafi’s seven other children besides Saadi, three were killed and one was captured during the conflict, and three fled to neighboring Algeria in August.

The dead are Muatassim, a militia commander, captured and shot on the same day as his father; Khamis, commander of an elite brigade, killed outside Tripoli on Aug. 29; and Seif al-Arab, killed by a NATO airstrike on Tripoli in April. The captured Qaddafi was the colonel’s heir-apparent, Seif al-Islam, arrested Nov. 19 in southwestern Libya. The three living in Algeria exile are sons Hannibal and Mohammed and daughter Aisha.

Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from New York