Al-Qadhafi, Muammar Muhammad (b. 1942) Libyan; President 1977– Qadhafi was born to a family of desert nomads and expelled from secondary school for pro- Nasserite political agitation . In 1963, he joined Benghazi Military Academy and launched the Nasserite Free Officers movement to infiltrate the army in 1964. As a junior officer, he led the movement in a bloodless coup which overthrew King Idris in 1969 and headed the ruling Revolutionary Command Council.

In line with the ‘third universal theory’ of his Green Book, Qadhafi reconstructed Libyan political, economic, and military systems, ostensibly on direct democracy principles and Koranic tenets, to produce the ...