During my first and only visit to Libya, in 2004, I came across a book entitled "Libya and the XXI Century". Since copies were on offer free of charge and the author was Gaddafi's playboy son, 
Saif al-Islam, I decided to take one.

Inside the front cover it says: 

"Taken from a University Thesis Presented to the Faculty of California State University, Hayward IMADEC – CSUH In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Executive Master in Business Administration by Saif-Aleslam M Alqadhafi, March 2000."

I was reminded of this by the controversy in Britain over Saif's relationship with the London School of Economics (where he was awarded a PhD in 2008 and subsequently promised a donation of £1.5 million to support its academic work). I wondered if the California State University had been blessed with a similar donation in 2000 as a result of his Executive MBA studies there.

But apparently not, because there's no evidence that Saif studied in California at all. The clue is in the initials "IMADEC" (short for "International Management Development Consulting"). 

IMADEC is a private law and business school with a controversial history. It is based in Vienna, Austria, where Saif lived in a luxury villa and his pet tiger resided in the city's zoo.

IMADEC was not legally recognised as a university by the Austrian authorities at the time Saif studied there, though it did have a partnership arrangement with California State University (Hayward) – which explains the inscription at the front of Saif's thesis. The relationship with CSUH ended in 2002 amid questionsabout the academic credentials of IMADEC's longtime director.

In 2006, IMADEC lost its Austrian university status, though it was allowed to continue offering "university level courses". An Austrian court also invalidated a number of honorary degrees that it had awarded – including a doctorate in business administration to Arnold Schwarzenegger. 

Last year, a creditor began bankruptcy proceedings against IMADEC (an unfortunate thing to happen to a business school) but this was apparently resolved through a restructuring plan.

IMADEC's website states that admission to its Executive MBA course is based on "academic and managerial accomplishments and potential". It says: "Successful applicants will generally possess seven or more years of work experience with four or more years in executive or managerial level positions."

Saif did not have that sort of experience, having completed his Libyan B Eng degree in architecture only in 1994. So presumably he qualified on the grounds of having "potential" (along with money).

As for his 276-page thesis, it's about the Libyan economy and large parts of it are gibberish. A section on page 34, headed "Bureaucracy, bribery, favouritism and administrative corruption" begins:

Bureaucracy and its accompanying phenomena such as bribery, favouritism and administrative corruption arise when it is impossible to issue and implement and follow-up decisions for reasons related to difficulty in issuing or implementing them or risk or importance thereof, but relate to the numerous channels through which such decisions should pass and the conditions to be fulfilled for eventual implementation of such decisions, which are mostly unnecessary or exaggerated conditions as a result of the prevailing administrative nature and unclear responsibilities and powers of the employees in the administrative machinery or conflict thereof.

At least nobody can accuse him of plagiarising that.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 3 March 2011