Qaddafi's lifestyle of the rich and infamous
TRIPOLI - Muammar Qaddafi's wife, daughter and two sons fled over the border to Algeria Monday. Qaddafi is still on the run.
In the last days of fighting, with defeat looming, Qaddafi's soldiers turned their guns on more than 50 civilian prisoners held in one building. Soldiers threw in grenades, then set the building on fire.
There were a lot of dead and a lot of wounded, says one witness, and even the wounded they executed in the end.
But atrocities are shared by both sides - rebels killed surrendered soldiers. It is part of the cruelty of this war. But Libyans have lived with another kind of cruelty for most of their lives, struggling in an oil rich country where a middle class family survives on $330 a month and roughly one-third live at or below the poverty line.
Qaddafi and his family lacked for nothing. Some of their fancy houses, with their jet skis, hot tubs and lavish surroundings are now in rebel hands.
One house belonging to one of Qaddafi's sons is a seaside retreat complete with a baby grand piano. Other houses stretch down the coast. The use of alcohol is forbidden in the Muslim religion, but when rebels found this place, the bar was fully stocked with expensive liquor.
But nothing says lifestyles of the rich and infamous like a $150 million private jet. The family private pilots would fly them anywhere in the world. Travelling by private jet was just the beginning of the millions the Qaddafi family would spend.
One son, according to a British newspaper, went through $2 million a month on trips to Paris or London - and haircuts that cost $7,000.
