The curse of legal disputes still haunts Gaddafi's plane wherever it goes

Some are wondering about the fate of the luxurious presidential plane of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. This luxurious presidential plane posed legal dilemmas for the new Libyan authorities, as one of the options was to strip it of the VIP cabin and convert it into a regular passenger plane, but it needed maintenance and renovation, and it was not in the status of the A340 presidential plane, which belonged to the former Tunisian president, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who was also overthrown in the wave of revolutions that shook the Arab world in 2011, and which was sold to Turkish Airlines.

The former presidential aircraft was transferred in 2012, registered number 5A-ONE, to the facilities of AAS Industries (now Sabina Technics), an aircraft maintenance and repair company and subcontractor for Air France, based in Perpignan, southern France.

Unlike other Libyan aircraft that were damaged during a 2011 shootout at Tripoli airport, and which had to be written off, Gaddafi's A340 remained airworthy, but the damage sustained during the airport battle was serious enough, that The 900-mile flight to France was lowered by about two-thirds of normal flying altitude.

a legal dispute

Once the plane arrived in France, it was repaired and repainted. And soon the old paint color, with which it was decorated when celebrating the anniversary of the announcement of the decision to establish the African Union on September 9, 1999, disappeared and was replaced by a new one bearing the Libyan flag. By 2013, the plane was ready to fly again, but rather than bring it into commercial service, the Libyan government kept it for its own use.

Shortly after that, the security situation in Libya deteriorated, and by March 2014, 5A-ONE returned to Perpignan for maintenance, but this time, its arrival on French soil marked the beginning of an international legal dispute, which has kept it on the ground to this day. Lawsuits and controversy seem to be the bane of this plane wherever it goes.

It was bought for the first time, in 1996, by Prince Jefri Bolkiah, brother of the Sultan of Brunei. The prince is said to have spent $250 million to renovate it, before selling it less than four years after its purchase, when he got involved in a legal dispute with his family over the exploitation of state funds.

The prominent Saudi businessman, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, bought it from him, but soon after, the A340 returned to the market, and Gaddafi entered the picture, and he finally got it in 2006 for $120 million.

The sale of this plane prompted a Jordanian businesswoman, Daad Shurrab, to sue Prince Alwaleed in the UK, alleging that he owed her for her role in brokering the deal. In 2013, a London court ruled in her favor, ordering her to pay $10 million, plus interest. This was the first of several high-profile legal cases linked to this aircraft.

In the legal crosshairs

In the same year Gaddafi bought his plane, the Libyan government signed a deal with the Al-Kharafi Group, a Kuwait-based conglomerate, to develop a seaside resort in Tajoura, near Tripoli. It wasn't long before this deal fell through, and in 2010, the Libyan side canceled it.

The Kuwaiti group responded by suing the Libyan government before an international arbitration court in Cairo, which in 2013 awarded the company $930 million in damages.

It seems that Gaddafi's presidential plane has once again been caught in the crossfire, but this time it was legal fire.

Al-Kharafi's group sued the Libyan state in France as well, so when the A340 landed in Perpignan, the group sought to confiscate it. However, in 2015, a local French court ruled that while the plane, which had a market value of $60 million, belonged to a sovereign country, it was therefore immune from any such claim.

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