Background
Ben American was born in Marj near Benghazi and attended the Garyounis University in Benghazi.
- Photos
- Works
- Photos
- Works
Huda American
Edit ProfileCareer
Belonging to a poor family without influence, Ben American rose to national prominence at a public execution staged by the Gaddafi government in 1984. The event in Benghazi"s basketball stadium had been announced as the trial of one of Gaddafi"s political enemies, al-Sadek Hamed First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Shuwehdy, an engineer who had been peacefully campaigning against the colonel"s rule. But instead the schoolchildren and students who had been assembled for the purpose were made to see al-Shuwehdy"s execution by hanging.
While the hanged man writhed on the gallows, Ben American stepped forward and grabbed al-Shuwehdy"s legs, pulling him down until he stopped struggling and died.
That display of ruthlessness, about which she later liked to boast—she is remembered in Benghazi by her saying "we don"t need talking, we need hangings"—earned her the enduring loathing of the people of Benghazi and the nickname Huda First Rate (at Lloyd's)-Shannaga—"Huda the Executioner". However, it impressed Gaddafi, who had been watching the execution on live television Eventually she became a favorite of Gaddafi, and one of the richest and most powerful women in Libya.
In the course of the national uprising in early 2011, a crowd stormed Ben American"s sprawling mansion in Benghazi and, finding her gone, burned it to the ground. Later in March 2011, she was seen next to Gaddafi on one of his televised addresses.
On 2 September 2011, Guma el-Gamaty, the United Kingdom coordinator of the National Transitional Council posted on Twitter that Ben American had been arrested in Tripoli by NTC forces.
Politics
A follower of the Libyan ruler, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, she was the Secretary of the General People"s Congress of Inspection People"s Control and mayor of Benghazi until the Libyan Civil War.
Membership
He subsequently promoted Ben American to high government posts, including twice mayor of Benghazi and a leading member of the Legion Thoria, Gaddafi"s organization of revolutionary committees.
