Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's children flaunted their wealth plundered from the country and behaved like mini-tyrants according to secret US diplomatic memos.
Among their extravagant displays of wealth was a million-dollar private concert by pop diva Beyonce, according to the memos released today by the secret-spilling website WikiLeaks.
Growing anger over crass behaviour by Gaddafi's offspring, such as son Hannibal's 2008 arrest for beating servants in a hotel in Switzerland, may have helped spark the current uprising.
"The family has been in a tailspin recently," a memo assessed a year ago.
The diplomats at the US Embassy in the Libyan capital of Tripoli describe how Gaddafi's children carved out spheres of influence, seemingly treating the country as their personal fiefdom.
Muhammad, the oldest son, dominated telecommunications, another son, Muatassim, was National Security Adviser, Hannibal was influential in maritime shipping, Khamis commanded a top military unit, while daughter Aisha ran a quasi-governmental organisation. Another son, Saadi, was given the job of setting up an Export Free Trade Zone in western Libya.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi cultivated a respectable image as Libya's face to the West, and had locals calling for him to be heir-apparent, the 2010 memo said.
However, that image may have been destroyed in a single instant earlier this week when he went on TV to threaten anti-government protesters with civil war if they persisted.
The family's unchecked control in Libya is highlighted in a July 2008 embassy report that Muatassim put pressure on the chairman of the National Oil Corporation, Shukri Ghanem, to give him 1.2 billion dollars in cash and oil shipments. Mr Ghanem told a confidant at the time he was considering resigning because he feared Muatassim could seek revenge if he was not paid, a 2008 memo said.
The confidant described Gaddafi's children as thugs, saying that "no one can cross or refuse such people without suffering consequences, particularly when the matter is to do with money," the cable said.
Another 2008 dispatch noted that government funding was used to capitalise Hannibal's maritime transportation company. The "close integration of private and public interests in many of Libya's key economic entities" became apparent when Libya quickly halted oil shipments in response to his detention in Geneva over the alleged beating of the servants.
Two years later, a memo cited reports that Hannibal physically abused his wife, Aline.
In 2009, Aline had threatened to leave Hannibal and fled to London, the memo said. "Hannibal pursued Aline in London, and the encounter ended in assault," it said.
Hannibal's mother, Safiya, and sister, Aisha, then persuaded Aline to report to police that she had been hurt in an accident and not mention abuse.
Saadi was described as having a troubled past, including run-ins with police in Europe, drug and alcohol abuse, and excessive partying, a 2009 memo said. It was important for the regime to create "the appearance of useful employment" for Gaddafi's children, the report said.
Flaunting of wealth was starting the hurt the family's image, the diplomats said. They noted that Muatassim "kicked off 2010 the same way he spent 2009 - with a New Year's Eve trip to the Caribbean island of St. Bart's - reportedly featuring copious amounts of alcohol and a million-dollar personal concert courtesy of Beyonce, Usher, and other musicians."
"The family has provided local observers with enough dirt for a Libyan soap opera," the 2010 memo concluded.
The diplomats also noted "acute discord" among the Gaddafi children. The growing rivalries - in the absence of a succession mechanism and amid rumours of Gaddafi's health problems - "could play an important, if not determinative role, in whether the family is able to hold on to power after the author of the revolution exits the political scene," a 2009 dispatch said.
Still, Gaddafi still remains very much in control, despite his carefully crafted image as an aloof philosopher-king, another memo said.
The dictator is intimately involved in the most important work, such as vetting business deals involving public funds to "ensure that opportunities to extract rents from those contracts are distributed to key regime allies," the diplomats observed.