Abdelhakim Belhadj (Abu Abdullah Sadek)

Abdelhakim Khwildi Belhadj is Libya’s Commander of the Tripoli Brigade and the city’s current Chief of the Military Council.

He was born in Tripoli, on May 1st, 1966. He studied Civil Engineering and after he graduated, Belhadj left Libya in 1988 for Saudi Arabia and then for Afghanistan to participate in the Afghani war against the perceived threat of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR) that began in 1978.

During the early 1990s, Belhadj joined the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) in Afghanistan as one of its leaders. After the fall of Kabul to the USSR, he left Afghanistan and traveled to more than 20 countries, including Turkey, Sudan and Pakistan.

In 1994, Belhadj returned to Libya and settled in its eastern area. He took advantage of the area’s inhabitants’ hostility toward Qaddafi and began planning a coup against the regime.

He gained many followers to restart the Libyan Fighting Group. Belhadj urged followers to join Qaddafi’s revolutionary committees to benefit from the military training offered and to gain access to weaponry. The group was positioned in Aljabal Alakhdhar, in Libya’s east.

In 1995, the Qaddafi authorities discovered the group’s plan and launched an air strike against the rebels. The fighting ended after a couple of years and Belhadj escaped to the UK after his group’s defeat, which led to the death of most of its members.

During his exile in the UK, Belhadj benefited from the strained diplomatic relations between Libya and the UK. Soon Belhadj left once again for Afghanistan, where he could reorganize the Libyan Fighting Group. By then he was known by his nom de guerre Abu Abdullah Sadek.

In February 2004, Belhadj was captured in Malaysia by the Passport and Immigration Office. He was taken to Bangkok for CIA investigation and then extradited to Libya on March 8th, 2004. He stayed in the Abu Slim prison for more than six years. While in prison, Belhadj spent three years without a shower and one year without seeing sunlight.

In 2010, Belhadj was released along with 214 other prisoners after Muslim leaders, such as the famous Imams Youssef Karadhawi and Ali Sallabi, played an intermediary role between him and Qaddafi’s regime.

After Tripoli fell on August 20th, many documents of the Libyan Central Intelligence Headquarters were released confirming that Belhadj was persecuted and tortured during the investigations by British commanders and that he was forcibly deported to Libya.

Belhadj denies links to Al Qaeda, arguing that the goals of the movement are biased and do not have legitimate origins. He said that after Al Qaeda was established, he was invited to join, but he did not do so as he was at odds with the movement’s ideology.

On September 5th of this year, he requested from the USA and the UK an official apology for the maltreatment and the torture commanders inflicted upon him during investigations.