for a reformer. According to the minutes of a December 2010 meeting of his foundation, Saif al-Islam took the unusual step of publicly denying he was feuding with his brothers. Two months later, when the rebellion began, he was the first to speak out in support of the government.
"He made what I call the Michael Corleone choice," adviser Barber said. "When the family, his brothers and long-term regime were under threat, he had a choice of going either with Benghazi or defending the family.
"He made a not very surprising decision. In the Arab world it's family and clan first, and everything else comes after."
Barber continued to interact with Saif al-Islam after the insurgency began and said the younger Gaddafi talked to South Africa and Turkey to try find a solution.
At the same time, Saif al-Islam held court to the world's media. "We fight here in Libya; we die here in Libya," he told Reuters shortly after the rebellion broke out. He later called the protesters "rats."
When Tripoli fell last August, rebels said he had been captured. But he popped up at a Tripoli hotel used by foreign journalists to prove he remained a free man.
He later disappeared, and his Moroccan-like villa, enclosed in what was once a heavily-guarded estate with its own grape vines, orchard and a personal zoo that housed tigers, was hit in a NATO airstrike. A pile of rubble now stands in what was an entrance hall, decorated with Islamic tiles, and sprayed with the names of militias that marched into Tripoli.
The International Criminal Court said Saif al-Islam offered to surrender, but officials there feared this could be a bluff and warned mercenaries with him that if they sought to escape by aircraft they could be shot down. Gaddafi denies that such an exchange took place. "It's all lies. I've never been in touch with them," he told Reuters in November.
In his final days on the run, witnesses said he was nervous, confused and frightened, at first calling his father by satellite phone, swearing aides to secrecy about his whereabouts and, after his father was killed, seeking to avoid a similarly gruesome fate.
He was captured in the desert by fighters from the town of Zintan on Nov. 19 without a fight and with only a handful of supporters, apparently about to flee to Niger.
On the old Libyan air force transport plane that took him to the town of Zintan, he wore a robe and at first hid his face and dodged questions from a Reuters reporter on board. He later confirmed he was okay and said his hand, with three of his right fingers bandaged, had been injured in a NATO air raid.
Many Libyans believe Saif al-Islam knows the location of the Gaddafi riches; his captors said they found him with only a few thousand dollars and a cache of rifles in seized vehicles.
The International Criminal Court and Libya have locked horns over who will try him. Among other things at stake, the venue could determine how fully the trial exposes secrets about the Gaddafi regime's dealings with the West.
Saif al-Islam's supporters, including surviving siblings who found refuge abroad, say they doubt he will be given a fair trial in Libya. He faces a prison term if convicted by the ICC, and the death penalty if found guilty by a Libyan court.
"To me it's a great modern tragedy," adviser Barber said. "And if there was a modern Sophocles or Aeschylus around, they would write it." (With additional reporting by Ali Shuaib in Tripoli and Ethan Bilby in London; Edited by Simon Robinson)
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