"Financial Times": Gaddafi's money may be in Belarus

The Libyan authorities are trying to find the money invested by the former regime to other countries.

One of Colonel Muammer Gaddafi’s most trusted aides hopscotched Africa and the world for years, shuttling from five-star hotels to presidential palaces while lavishing billions of dollars on investments and serving as intermediary between Libya’s leadership, Africa and France.

Then, shortly after the collapse of the Gaddafi regime, Bashir Saleh Bashir and his secrets disappeared. Some say the former head of Libyan African Portfolio investment fund is in Africa. Others insist he is hiding out in Paris under the protection of powerful allies.

Finding him may be the key to discovering what Libyan officials describe as up to $7bn – stashed away in obscure accounts and investments – in missing Libyan cash and assets.

Senior Libyan officials say he may also help answer questions about ties between the former regime in Tripoli and the French political establishment.

"I don’t have a quarter of the information that this guy has. He is the only individual in Libya who knows all the details of Libya’s investments in Africa,” says Abdel-Hamid el-Jadi, a Libyan banker who has been working with government officials to track down Libyan assets squandered under Gaddafi. "We really need him badly.”

Among his various roles, the 66-year-old Mr Bashir served as head of the LAP, a sovereign wealth fund that invested Libya’s oil wealth mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Insiders say it operated with little oversight, though it was officially under the auspices of the Libyan Investment Authority, which was subject to scrutiny despite being in disarray.

Mr Bashir spent Libya’s oil money solely at the behest of the Gaddafi family, buying up hotels, mineral resources and shares in companies, eventually becoming what some Libyan officials and financial experts describe as one of the largest single investors in Africa. The fund also had investments in less than transparent countries such as Belarus and Ukraine, according to western diplomats.

While the Libyan Investment Authority had auditors eyeing its books, the African portfolio was a black hole. Libyan Investment Authority officials say they lack a breakdown of the portfolio’s investments or documentation about where much was invested.

"The LIA didn’t have any control over where they invested,” says a senior investment authority official. "No one could go to those guys and say, ‘What are you doing? How are you investing this money?’ We didn’t have the breakdown of the investments or what they invested in.”

Getting at the assets quickly is crucial, Libyan officials say, because some African countries have begun to negate deals they made with the Gaddafi regime. Libyan officials, for example, accuse Zambia of seizing Libya’s share of the mobile carrier Zamtel, alleging irregularities in the bidding process.

"Countries like Zambia are trying to take advantage. This is Libyan money, not Gaddafi’s money, the Libyan people’s money,” says Ashour bin Khayyal, Libya’s foreign affairs minister.

The exact whereabouts of Mr Bashir remain a matter of speculation. Reuters reported last month that he was issued a Niger passport in December. A French businessman who has known him for more than 10 years insisted he was in Paris under the protection of powerful business people with whom he had past dealings.

Asked about Mr Bashir, Alain Juppé, the French foreign minister, told the Financial Times: "It is possible he is in France, but I can’t confirm it. What I can tell you is that the Quai d’Orsay (the foreign ministry) has no relationship with him.”

During the eight-month war that unseated his boss, Mr Bashir could be seen in the Tunisian resort city of Djerba surrounded by leather-jacketed bodyguards in an S-class Mercedes meeting African businesspeople, said a western diplomat who ran into him. Several diplomats told the FT that they suspect he was trying to buy arms and recruit mercenaries for the regime.

In the weeks after the collapse of the regime, official media in Libya reported that he had been detained by anti-Gaddafi militiamen in the mountain town of Zintan, before disappearing again.

Mr Jadi said Mr Bashir was spirited away to France, in part because he may have information about the much-rumoured relationship between President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Gaddafi regime.

Mr Sarkozy has strenuously denied allegations that resurfaced in the French media recently suggesting that his 2007 campaign received funds from Gaddafi.

Libyan authorities have aggressively pursued former regime bigwigs such as intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi in Mauritania and other enforcers now residing in Egypt. But they admit they have been less persistent in tracking down Mr Bashir.

This has led to speculation among Libyans that his case is being kept on ice with the tacit agreement of Libyan transitional officials until after the French elections on April 22. France spearheaded the Nato bombing campaign that helped rebels overrun Gaddafi’s regime.

"I think he’s being helped by the French,” said Mr Diab, a key member of Libya’s National Transitional Council. "He’s being protected by France. A man worth $7bn can buy a lot of protection.”

Libyan officials also say they are too overwhelmed with competing demands to pursue all those who have absconded with Libyan cash and secrets. As Mr Bin Khayyal acknowledged: "Extradition depends on us more than them.”

Borzou Daragahi, "Financial Times"