THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A catalogue of failures by senior dons allowed one of Britain’s top universities to establish a “disastrous” relationship with Gaddafi’s Libya, according to a damning report.
The London School of Economics built up increasingly extensive ties to the regime over almost a decade after admitting Muammar Gaddafi's most high-profile son, Saif al-Islam, in 2002.
In a series of blunders, the university allowed Saif Gaddafi to start a PhD despite concerns over his academic ability and accepted a £1.5m donation from his personal charity with limited inquiries into the source of the cash.
Its links to the regime were so extensive that at one point the university was even nicknamed the “Libyan School of Economics”, it was revealed.
The inquiry – carried out by Lord Woolf, the former Lord Chief Justice – found that the relationship was allowed to grow “unchecked and to a degree unnoticed until their effect was overwhelming” when the Gaddafi regime started to crumble this year. Muammar Gaddafi was eventually killed by rebels in October and his son was captured in mid-November.
In a damning conclusion, the report said: “The mistakes and errors of judgment go beyond those that could be expected from an institute of the LSE's distinction." » | Graeme Paton, Education Editor | Wednesday, November 30, 2011
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