US arms manufacturer General Dynamics has its sights on a £9 million property once owned by the Qaddafi family as payment for a weapons deal brokered with Libya, documents show.
The company, which makes the F-16 fighter jet and M1 Abrams tank, says it is owed £16 million ($20.34 million) for the supply of military vehicles and communications equipment to the country.
It has gone to court to secure the proceeds of any sale of the rotting mansion, which was once owned by Saadi Qaddafi, son of the former leader Muammar Qaddafi and former commander of Libya's special forces.
The property in Hampstead, the upmarket north London district favoured by international investors, has been the subject of complex ongoing legal battles stretching back to the overthrow of the Qaddafi regime in 2011, and was symbolic of the hunt for assets looted by his family and associates.
It was seized in the name of the Libyan people in 2012 after a court ruled Saadi was the beneficial owner of the property, which was bought through a British Virgin Islands registered front company named Capitana Seas.
But the house is now once again at the heart of a legal fight, this time between General Dynamics and Libya.
It sits in a cul-de-sac surrounded by other sprawling properties with expensive cars in their driveways.
The blinds were all closed apart from one downstairs when The National visited, and it revealed the dilapidated state of the inside of the house.
All that remains inside the bare room is a television surrounded by empty cupboards and shelves.
One neighbour, who declined to be identified, revealed there were recent signs of life at the property.
“I saw some gardeners there the other day. There's a rumour it's been put on the market,” he said. “I've never seen anyone living there.”
Legal saga
The contract between Libya and General Dynamics' UK subsidiary was signed in 2008 and, at the time of the protests against Qaddafi, it was reported the company appeared to be working with the Khamis Brigade, led by and named after one of Qaddafi’s sons.
The Khamis Brigade was the best equipped of Libya’s security forces and was directly involved in putting down the uprising in cities such as Misrata and Tripoli, where thousands were killed.
In a bid to recover the money it is owed, General Dynamics sought arbitration from the International Chamber of Commerce in Geneva, which ruled in its favour in 2016.
The company then applied to the English courts to enforce the debt, which was opposed by the Libyan government.
Eventually, Libya appealed to the UK’s Supreme Court and won on the basis that the proper procedure for recovering a debt against a foreign state had not been followed.
But the US firm is pressing on with its legal moves to recover its money.
Records show a Unilateral Notice was registered against the North London property earlier this year by General Dynamics.
The notice is used to register any interest that a third party may have in a particular property or estate and to notify the other party of its existence.
It has been made in respect of an interim charging order granted by a court in February, which is usually issued to stop an owner selling a property without letting a creditor know.
If a court grants a creditor a final charging order, this means that if the property is sold the owner must pay the creditor back out of the proceeds.
The seizure of the property in 2012 was heralded as the start of an assault on the looted overseas assets estimated at between $40 billion and $200 billion.
A 2016 study by consultants for anti-corruption group Transparency International suggested that $60 billion to $120 billion had been looted by former regime officials.
Only $20 million of that was returned to Libya and half of that was the London property.
The General Dynamics deal with Libya came after Qaddafi abandoned his nuclear weapons in 2003 and returned to mainstream international politics.
At the time of the protests against Qaddafi, documents revealed by Reuters showed General Dynamics was working to improve communications systems for tanks, artillery and armoured troop carriers for the Khamis Brigade.
The Libyan embassy in London has been approached for comment. General Dynamics declined to comment.
The%20specs
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Fixtures and results:
Wed, Aug 29:
- Malaysia bt Hong Kong by 3 wickets
- Oman bt Nepal by 7 wickets
- UAE bt Singapore by 215 runs
Thu, Aug 30: UAE v Nepal; Hong Kong v Singapore; Malaysia v Oman
Sat, Sep 1: UAE v Hong Kong; Oman v Singapore; Malaysia v Nepal
Sun, Sep 2: Hong Kong v Oman; Malaysia v UAE; Nepal v Singapore
Tue, Sep 4: Malaysia v Singapore; UAE v Oman; Nepal v Hong Kong
Thu, Sep 6: Final
TO A LAND UNKNOWN
Director: Mahdi Fleifel
Starring: Mahmoud Bakri, Aram Sabbah, Mohammad Alsurafa
Rating: 4.5/5
Company%20profile
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Three tips from La Perle's performers
1 The kind of water athletes drink is important. Gwilym Hooson, a 28-year-old British performer who is currently recovering from knee surgery, found that out when the company was still in Studio City, training for 12 hours a day. “The physio team was like: ‘Why is everyone getting cramps?’ And then they realised we had to add salt and sugar to the water,” he says.
2 A little chocolate is a good thing. “It’s emergency energy,” says Craig Paul Smith, La Perle’s head coach and former Cirque du Soleil performer, gesturing to an almost-empty open box of mini chocolate bars on his desk backstage.
3 Take chances, says Young, who has worked all over the world, including most recently at Dragone’s show in China. “Every time we go out of our comfort zone, we learn a lot about ourselves,” she says.
The specs
Engine: Four electric motors, one at each wheel
Power: 579hp
Torque: 859Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh825,900
On sale: Now
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Scotland v Ireland:
Scotland (15-1): Stuart Hogg; Tommy Seymour, Huw Jones, Sam Johnson, Sean Maitland; Finn Russell, Greig Laidlaw (capt); Josh Strauss, James Ritchie, Ryan Wilson; Jonny Gray, Grant Gilchrist; Simon Berghan, Stuart McInally, Allan Dell
Replacements: Fraser Brown, Jamie Bhatti, D'arcy Rae, Ben Toolis, Rob Harley, Ali Price, Pete Horne, Blair Kinghorn
Coach: Gregor Townsend (SCO)
Ireland (15-1): Rob Kearney; Keith Earls, Chris Farrell, Bundee Aki, Jacob Stockdale; Jonathan Sexton, Conor Murray; Jack Conan, Sean O'Brien, Peter O'Mahony; James Ryan, Quinn Roux; Tadhg Furlong, Rory Best (capt), Cian Healy
Replacements: Sean Cronin, Dave Kilcoyne, Andrew Porter, Ultan Dillane, Josh van der Flier, John Cooney, Joey Carbery, Jordan Larmour
Coach: Joe Schmidt (NZL)
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
Zakat definitions
Zakat: an Arabic word meaning ‘to cleanse’ or ‘purification’.
Nisab: the minimum amount that a Muslim must have before being obliged to pay zakat. Traditionally, the nisab threshold was 87.48 grams of gold, or 612.36 grams of silver. The monetary value of the nisab therefore varies by current prices and currencies.
Zakat Al Mal: the ‘cleansing’ of wealth, as one of the five pillars of Islam; a spiritual duty for all Muslims meeting the ‘nisab’ wealth criteria in a lunar year, to pay 2.5 per cent of their wealth in alms to the deserving and needy.
Zakat Al Fitr: a donation to charity given during Ramadan, before Eid Al Fitr, in the form of food. Every adult Muslim who possesses food in excess of the needs of themselves and their family must pay two qadahs (an old measure just over 2 kilograms) of flour, wheat, barley or rice from each person in a household, as a minimum.
THE BIO
Born: Mukalla, Yemen, 1979
Education: UAE University, Al Ain
Family: Married with two daughters: Asayel, 7, and Sara, 6
Favourite piece of music: Horse Dance by Naseer Shamma
Favourite book: Science and geology
Favourite place to travel to: Washington DC
Best advice you’ve ever been given: If you have a dream, you have to believe it, then you will see it.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Have you been targeted?
Tuan Phan of SimplyFI.org lists five signs you have been mis-sold to:
1. Your pension fund has been placed inside an offshore insurance wrapper with a hefty upfront commission.
2. The money has been transferred into a structured note. These products have high upfront, recurring commission and should never be in a pension account.
3. You have also been sold investment funds with an upfront initial charge of around 5 per cent. ETFs, for example, have no upfront charges.
4. The adviser charges a 1 per cent charge for managing your assets. They are being paid for doing nothing. They have already claimed massive amounts in hidden upfront commission.
5. Total annual management cost for your pension account is 2 per cent or more, including platform, underlying fund and advice charges.
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cylinder turbo
Power: 240hp at 5,500rpm
Torque: 390Nm at 3,000rpm
Transmission: eight-speed auto
Price: from Dh122,745
On sale: now
The specs
- Engine: 3.9-litre twin-turbo V8
- Power: 640hp
- Torque: 760nm
- On sale: 2026
- Price: Not announced yet
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Museum of the Future in numbers
- 78 metres is the height of the museum
- 30,000 square metres is its total area
- 17,000 square metres is the length of the stainless steel facade
- 14 kilometres is the length of LED lights used on the facade
- 1,024 individual pieces make up the exterior
- 7 floors in all, with one for administrative offices
- 2,400 diagonally intersecting steel members frame the torus shape
- 100 species of trees and plants dot the gardens
- Dh145 is the price of a ticket
