Age: 36.
Appearance: Oh, lovely, just lovely. Perfection, really.
You sound nervous? Do I?
And you keep looking over your shoulder. Is something amiss? No, not at all. She's not behind me, is she?
No. This wouldn't be anything to do with the fact that she is the daughter of the late, apocalyptically cruel and violent Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, would it? Actually, it is more the fact that she seems to resemble him so much in temperament and unbridled aggression. She has been expelled from the presidential palace that has been her safehouse in Algeria since she and other family members fled Libya in 2011, reportedly for setting fire to it.
No! Yes, "repeatedly". Plus, they say she keeps attacking her army bodyguards. The final straw was when she burned a picture of the Algerian president.
That would be terribly bad form, even for a paying guest. It is hardly what you would expect from a lawyer and former UN goodwill ambassador, which is what Aisha is, but it is probably fair to say that she constitutes an exceptional case.
Any explanation for her behaviour? The Algerian government – which says it took her in on humanitarian grounds as she was heavily pregnant when she arrived at its borders and had yet to have an arrest warrant issued against her – says she blames Algeria for the Gaddafi clan's problems.
I take it nobody has tried to advance a corrective view? What, such as: "It's probably more to do with your father's despotic regime, and multiple and extensive human rights abuses committed during the long, brutal decades of his reign."?
Yes, something along those lines. No. It took the easier way out and sent her to Oman, where she now resides at its government's expense.
Do you know, I can't find it in my heart to blame the Algerians. Nor I, sir, nor I.
Do say: "O-man! Please don't set fire to anything here!"
Don't say: "What was that, madam? A gallon of crude oil and a box of Swan Vestas? But of course – coming right up!"
