Turns out the seizure of Muammar Qaddafi's Tripoli compound isn't just turning up underground tunnels, Condoleezza Rice photo albums, and lots of loot. Mary Fitzgerald of the Irish Times reports today that she's discovered evidence suggesting that Qaddafi's adopted daughter Hana, whom Libyan state media claimed had been killed as an infant in the 1986 U.S. bombing of Qaddafi's compound, is still alive. Fitzgerald explains that ever since the airstrike, which took place in retaliation for a Libyan-sponsored bombing of a Berlin nightclub, Qaddafi has invoked Hana's death to portray himself as a "victim of western military aggression," even organizing a "Hana Festival of Freedom and Peace" to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the U.S. raid.
Yesterday, in Qaddafi's ransacked compound (pictured above), Fitzgerald entered a room that the rebels soon excitedly suggested was Hana's. She found a Sex and the City DVD box set, Backstreet Boys CDs, bookshelves filled with medical textbooks, and passport photos of a woman in a white medical coat who looked to be in her mid-20s. She also came across a medical exam paper signed "Hana Muammar Qaddafi" in Arabic and a certificate indicating that a Hana Muammar Qaddafi had received an A in an English language course. Fitzgerald appended photos of these and other discoveries to her article.
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