Gaddafi daughter thrown out of Algeria after 'starting fires'

The daughter of Muammar Gaddafi has been granted asylum in Oman after she was thrown out of her safe house in Algeria for repeatedly setting fires and attacking guards in fits of rage over her situation, it emerged last night.

Aisha Gaddafi, who gave birth to a daughter just days after fleeing to Algeria in 2011, started fires inside the presidential palace she was given, attacked her army bodyguards and destroyed a portrait of the Algerian President, Abdul Aziz Bouteflika, the local newspaper Ennahar reported.

The destruction of the painting was said to have been the final straw and the 37-year-old, who used to be a UN goodwill ambassador, was forced to leave the country.

Ms Gaddafi, her mother Safia Farkash, her daughter, also named Safia, and brothers Mohammed and Hannibal are understood to have been living under the protection and at the expense of the Omani government since October 2012. They were given sanctuary there on "humanitarian grounds".

"Gaddafi's wife, two sons and a daughter, as well as their children, have been in Oman since October last year," an Omani government official told Reuters last week.

Ms Gaddafi, a lawyer by profession, is the fifth child of former Libyan leader Gaddafi and his only daughter.

Her husband, Ahmed al-Gaddafi al-Qahsi, an army colonel, and two of their three children were killed in bombing raids that ended her father's 42-year regime. She left Libya with her mother and brothers in a convoy of armed Mercedes-Benz cars.

Algeria said it took in the family because Ms Gaddafi was so close to giving birth and because the International Criminal Court had not issued arrest warrants for any members of the party. An Algerian government source said: "She ended up blaming Algeria for many of her problems, and also began starting fires in the house," the Daily Telegraph reported.

One of Aisha's brothers Saif al-Islam is awaiting trial in a Libyan prison, while another, Saadi, fled to Niger. Three other of Gaddafi's sons, including the country's national security adviser Mutassim, were killed by rebels on the same day as the leader, 20 October 2011.