Israel may soon take in a highly unexpected immigrant. Aisha Gadhafi, the daughter of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who was killed in October after a nine-month uprising against his regime, may seek political asylum in Israel if she is allowed to enter, the Walla Israeli news website reported on Wednesday. It was quoting the French intelligence website Intelligence Online.
Aisha Gadhafi fled Libya during the violent uprising against her father, and went to Algeria with her mother, two other siblings and other relatives.
The report said she recently told friends in Europe with whom her family had close personal and business ties that she may ask the Israeli government for political asylum because of concerns that her Algerian hosts could buckle under pressure from Libya's new rulers and extradite her to stand trial in her home country.
Gadhafi may legally qualify for immigration to, and even receive citizenship, in the Jewish state under Israel's Law of Return, which stipulates that anyone with at least one Jewish parent or grandparent can receive Israeli citizenship. There have been long-standing rumors that the Gadhafi family has Jewish roots.
In August, a woman living in Netanya claimed to be a distant cousin of Moammar Gadhafi. Gita Boaron, 75, said, "I saw him on a few occasions when we were growing up ... We played together when he visited our home with his aunt Didi. I saw him before my family moved to Israel. He was 7 years old, and I was 13." Boaron also insisted that the late Libyan leader was Jewish, saying his mother was a Jew who had converted to Islam.
Aisha's European friends, meanwhile, reportedly advised her not to request asylum in Israel, warning her it would likely object to taking in the daughter of a former Arab dictator.
Gadhafi, however, has already been in contact with at least one Israeli -- her lawyer. A former prosecutor with the Justice Ministry and at the U.N.'s International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Nick Kaufman was recently hired by Gadhafi and her brother Saadi to represent them at the International Criminal Court at The Hague.
To date, no charges have been filed against Aisha Gadhafi, and most of Kaufman's work has focused on a petition filed on Gadhafi's behalf to the International Criminal Court demanding an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of her father and brother, Mutassim.
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