This post was written by Adoption STAR CEO and Founder Michele Fried.
With the death of Muammar Gaddafi, allegedly the father of eight or nine children, we find that he liked sharing a story that he was an “adoptive father.” Whether or not this was true is difficult to say but it is widely known that he would often say things for propaganda purposes.
There is little known about Milad Gaddafi. Milad may have been Gaddafi’s nephew he may have been adopted by him as a symbolic gesture tied to an incident in 1986 when the young Milad reportedly saved the Libyan leader’s life during a U.S. bomb attack on his compound.
It is known that Gaddafi had a biological daughter named Ayesha Gaddafi, now 35 years old. She is currently a lawyer who was part of the unsuccessful team defending ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in a war-crimes trial that eventually led to his execution. According to Cable television news, Ayesha is “considered by some shrewder and smarter than her brothers.” It has been reported that she has fled to Algeria.
If Ayesha is said to be Gaddafi’s only daughter. Then who is Hana?
In the same 1986 attack mentioned above, Gaddafi claimed that his “adopted” daughter, Hana, was killed. Some reports say that she was nine-years-old at the time other reports say she was 18-months-old. News outlets reported that a child with that name did die but was not related to Gaddafi. Others believe that Hana Gaddafi is alive and well and is working today as a physician in Tripoli. Others say this Hana was another child Gaddafi adopted and named in “memory” of the first Hana.
Truly there is no evidence that Gaddafi ever adopted a daughter in the first place. The only evidence at hand is that Gaddafi was one of the world’s longest serving dictators who led with brutality.