When Harry met Gaddafi

With the news packed with terrible images of Libya, one Audlem resident is recalling the time he met Colonel Gaddafi soon after the dictator came to power.

In 1974, Harry Knapper commissioned what was then the first oil refinery in the oil centre of Zawiya, thirty miles west of the Libyan capital of Tripoli, and very recently the scene of intense fighting.

When it was time for the official opening of the oil facility, Harry had to greet and meet the Libyan leader. Gaddafi presented Harry with a large copy of the Quo-ran in English and Arabic, a book he still has in his possession.

Gaddafi had come to power only five years earlier and the Zawiya refinery was an early project in what is now a massive oil industry in the North African country.

Harry, his wife Ann and family had some unusual neighbours when they lived in Libya, notably the exiled ex-Ugandan president, Idi Amin, who they could see occasionally in the neighbourhood before the infamous dictator moved from Libya to Saudi Arabia.

As regular readers will know, Harry was a champion boxer in his youth – as indeed was Amin. Unfortunately, it appears they never met as sparring partners. Now that would be a tale to tell!

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