German on the run with Gaddafi’s right hand man

The German wife of Gaddafi’s spokesman said that the rebels would not capture Tripoli. Now she’s on the run
Libya’s government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim
Libya’s government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim
DARIO LOPEZ-MILLS/AP

As she wheeled a pushchair through the lobby, Julia Ramelow looked strangely out of place. It was here, in the Rixos Hotel, Tripoli, that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime was corralling dozens of war correspondents, but for the pretty redhead and her young son it had also been home for months. As we later talked over tea in the hotel’s coffee bar, just how long it would remain so seemed a moot question.

That was more than a month ago. At the time, rebel forces were gathering to strike at the heart of the Libyan dictator’s empire and, unwittingly, this German-born, British-educated woman was at the centre of the conflict. Why? Because her husband, Moussa Ibrahim, a member of the Gaddafi tribe, is the regime’s official