Help! What Gaddafi wrote to his friend Berlusconi

IT HAS yet to be authenticated, but it has emerged that, days after he went on the run, Col Gaddafi wrote a letter to his old friend Silvio Berlusconi begging him to use his influence to put a halt to the Nato intervention in Libya.

"I have been surprised by the attitude of a friend with whom I have sealed a treaty of friendship that benefits both our nations," Gaddafi wrote. "I would have hoped that at least you would have been concerned at the facts and would have attempted a mediation before adding your support to this war."

The letter, dated August 5, was in printed Arabic with handwritten additions scrawled across it. It was marked for the attention of Gaddafi’s aide, Abdallah Mansour: "Send on this message as coming from me, by means of this document, after correction."

The letter is published by Paris Match magazine. It appears to be genuine – and it makes sense that Gaddafi would write to Berlusconi. The Libyan leader had enjoyed a long and supposedly close friendship with his one true ally in Europe. The story goes that Berlusconi was taught the expression 'bunga, bunga' by Gaddafi.

The Italian prime minister admitted the friendship in a speech he made to supporters in September. He said he had felt "very bad" about joining the Nato campaign to help the Libyan people oust Gaddafi. While observers considered the claim disingenuous, Berlusconi even said he had even considered resigning over the issue.

What is not clear is whether the letter published by Paris Match ever reached Berlusconi. It was handed in to the magazine by an Italian couple who had become friends of the Libyan leader while running an agency that provided personnel for conferences Gaddafi held on his trips to Rome.

At one such 'conference' in 2009, a group of 200 young Italian women were invited – all of whom had to be beautiful and at least 1.70m tall – to to be told by Gaddafi that they should become Muslims. On leaving, each woman was given 50 euros and a copy of the Koran.

Berlusconi's office has not responded to the publication of the Gaddafi letter, in which the deposed dictator concluded: "I do not blame you for things you are not responsible for because I am well aware that you were not in favour of this disastrous action which honours neither you nor the Italian people." ·