"He's not delusional. He's a psychopath." London psychiatrist speaks about Gaddafi kidnapping of his father and three brothers

ABC – The World Today/Transcript

Eleanor Hall reported this story on Thursday, March 3, 2011

ELEANOR HALL: As you’ve heard on this program over the last week or so Libyans have been warning that in Tripoli and other besieged cities armed squads are targeting civilians and kidnapping them from their homes. Today we can tell you about one such case.

Abdulrahman Sewehli is a retired Libyan academic with degrees from the UK and the US who went to school with Moamar Gaddafi. He was insistent that he be identified when he spoke out in opposition to the regime.

Now he has disappeared from his home in Tripoli and his London-based son says his father has been kidnapped along with some of his other sons.

Ahmed Sewehli spoke to me from his home in London and told me what he has pieced together about his Tripoli-based father and brothers.

AHMED SEWEHLI: On Monday morning my father called me from Tripoli to say that two of my brothers had been taken by Gaddafi forces from their place of hiding.

He was at another place of hiding and he told me that he was going to go back to our family home with another of my brothers and wait for Gaddafi’s forces to pick him up as well.

And I tried to persuade him not to do that. However he said to me that he, my father, had done his job. He had, he was very vocal on Arabic TV throughout the protests against Gaddafi. And now that Gaddafi’s regime was coming to an end he didn’t mind dying or being picked up by Gaddafi if they came to his house.

ELEANOR HALL: So they were taken from the family home?

AHMED SEWEHLI: Yeah my father and one of my brothers were taken from the family home. My father told me to call later that morning to see if he was still there and if there’s no answer you’ll know what’s happened.

So I got one of my relatives to drive past the family home and the place was swarming with mercenaries and uniformed troops.

And I’ve not heard anything since. And to be honest I don’t really expect to hear anything from anybody until this whole nightmare comes to an end.

ELEANOR HALL: Do you have any idea where your father and brothers are now?

AHMED SEWEHLI: I mean many people, even though for me this is a personal tragedy, many people have been kidnapped in Tripoli over the past two, three days.

And we believe that they’ve probably been taken to Gaddafi’s command compound in the centre of Tripoli and that’s the only place we could imagine, maybe to be used as human shields.

To be honest if he’s going to die I can only hope that he and my brothers die a quick death and because I can’t imagine what Gaddafi may do to him and to my brothers.

I mean my youngest brother is 19 years old. He’s a first year medical student. All he’s done is been involved in the protests. He has gone out in Tripoli, faced tear gas, shots.

Once one of my other brothers, the older brother who was taken away unconscious, he was speaking to me on the phone whilst under tear gas attack and shots were being fired at him. This was on Friday or after Friday prayers.

And he said to me, I said to him go home. And he said I’m not going home, it’s Gaddafi who needs to go.

ELEANOR HALL: What about the rest of your family? Is anyone still in Tripoli?

AHMED SEWEHLI: My mother and two sisters are still in Tripoli. My mother is completely distraught. I mean, and that’s when I get upset, when I speak to her because she is, you know you wouldn’t imagine what kind of state of mind she’s in.

She’s you know, she feels that she’s lost her husband and three sons. And we don’t know if they are going to come out of this alive.

She is not worried about her own safety because she’s gone beyond that.

ELEANOR HALL: So you say she’s not worried. But are you worried about her? Is she also in danger?

AHMED SEWEHLI: With this man, if we can call him that, Gaddafi, I am worried because this man will go to any lengths at all.

You know to be honest this is very hard to even think about it, but I wouldn’t be surprised, he could do that, he could go and start kidnapping the women as well. You know if it gets to that it’ll be absolutely terrible.

I was expecting this to happen to be honest at any time because the few people who have spoken out and had identified themselves on Arabic media, many of them had already disappeared.

ELEANOR HALL: Did you talk to your father about not using his name when he spoke out, about the possibility that something like this could happen?

AHMED SEWEHLI: No I didn’t because my father wouldn’t be persuaded. I mean it was very hard to persuade him to actually leave our family home in the first place let alone not identify himself.

But he’s the kind of person who wanted for the people of Libya to know that there were real persons who were actually speaking against him because Gaddafi has always said and is still saying that there is no opposition to him and that these protests are people from abroad. And so my father felt that he needed to identify himself.

ELEANOR HALL: Are you certain that Gaddafi forces are targeting people who speak out against Gaddafi or could this just be random?

AHMED SEWEHLI: Gaddafi I’m sure has been taking many people randomly.

However in the case of my father Gaddafi knows my father personally. My father went to high school, the same high school as Gaddafi.

And my father has met Gaddafi on two occasions in the past 10 years or so at Gaddafi’s request. It was my father felt to see if there was anything that could be done to improve the state of the country. But my father said those two conversations, they were just, nothing came out of them and he just continued leading a normal life.

However when people were being killed by Gaddafi he couldn’t, you know he couldn’t be quiet and he had to come out and speak against it.

ELEANOR HALL: So your father knows Gaddafi. Does he think he’s delusional?

AHMED SEWEHLI: I mean I am a psychiatrist and, but it doesn’t need a psychiatrist to show that at the very least Gaddafi is a psychopath because he doesn’t care about whether other people are hurt or killed. I don’t think he has any feelings about that whatsoever.

And he may indeed be delusional and feel that the whole, you know the whole of the Libyan nation is with him.

However he’s a very shrewd and intelligent man at the same time. But you know, a psychopath at that.

ELEANOR HALL: Yes we had someone on the program yesterday saying that he’s not delusional and no-one should underestimate him.

AHMED SEWEHLI: Absolutely. In terms of not underestimating him absolutely. I don’t think anybody can stay in power for 42 years against the will of the people and you know not be a shrewd, intelligent man.

He knows how to get where he wants and I’m very worried that this time, even though if you’d asked me three days ago I would have said that Gaddafi is coming to an end, I’m a bit worried that the tide is turning and we are just watching. We are just watching another Hitler massacre his own people and then have to do a body count afterwards.

ELEANOR HALL: That’s Ahmed Sewehli, a London based Libyan doctor telling us of his fears for his father and brothers who he says have been kidnapped by Gaddafi forces in Tripoli. And you can listen to a longer version of that interview on our website this afternoon.