Delivered Into Enemy Hands - Human Rights Watch

tices. While he was studying engineering at the University of Tripoli, he became actively
involved in a small secret group in Libya (a precursor to the LIFG) that, at the time, was
engaged in planning to resist the government by force. He later became a founding mem-
ber of the LIFG and its law and religious leader. 328 He was detained once in 1984 for a
month for distributing anti-Gaddafi leaflets. When Saadi left Libya, he went to Afghanistan
via Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to assist in efforts to oppose the Soviet-installed govern-
ment. “I believed in the fact that Afghan people were oppressed,” he said. He left two
brothers behind, both of whom were imprisoned for many years for their anti-Gaddafi
activities and both of whom he said died in the Abu Salim prison massacre of 1996.
After the Afghan government fell in 1992, infighting among groups in Afghanistan made it
hard to stay in the area. He also said it was very difficult for Arabs to remain. So in 1993 he
sought asylum in the United Kingdom. In 1994, Saadi was granted “indefinite leave to
remain.” 329
At some point, either prior to or during his time in the UK, he went to Algeria and got
married. From 1994 to 1997 Saadi was in the UK, where he and other LIFG members continued
to organize and plan operations against Gaddafi. By 1997, however, he began to feel
unsafe there as well. Twice, an individual approached him and tried to speak to him in
Urdu and Arabic, asking him questions that showed knowledge about his family and
attempting to get information from him. Then a Libyan associate of his who was opposed
to Gaddafi, Ali Abuseid, was killed in a stabbing in his grocery store in London in 1996. 330
So Saadi left with his family and other LIFG members and they began to organize from
Pakistan and Afghanistan. Saadi said he felt “there was no other place for us to go.”
During his years in Afghanistan, Saadi lived and worked in Kabul, where the LIFG was
active. He said he met Osama bin Laden on two occasions in Kandahar, in 2000 and in the
late summer of 2001. Saadi told Human Rights Watch that bin Laden had already been
328 Tawil, Brothers in Arms, p. 53.
329 “Claim on Behalf of Sami al-Saadi Against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSARG),” June 12, 2012,
http://www.therenditionproject.org.uk/pdf/PDF%20208%20%5BClaim%20for%20damages,%20al%20Saadi%20v%20Hon
g%20Kong,%2012%20Jun%202012%5D.pdf (accessed June 17, 2012).
330 For an account of this killing, see Hilsum, Sandstorm, p. 96-97.
103 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | SEPTEMBER 2012