Former nightclub dancer reveals how she had a 'crazy' six-year fling with Gaddafi's son and watched as he blew millions



Claims he kept suitcases stuffed with bank notes and spent £170m in a single year



He paid £500,000 for the Pussycat Dolls to perform live at his birthday party

Allegedly got wildly drunk, offered her cocaine and beat up his servants

Gleaming in a £5,000 white suit, the wealthy young Arab sat mesmerised as he watched a striking dancer gyrate at the Pink Paradise club in Paris. The girl turned and her long chestnut hair caught in a candle, setting it on fire.

Paranoid: Saadi and Dafinka in the only picture she has of them, taken on Safari in Tanzania

The Arab waved desperately to alert her, saving her from serious damage.

The unlikely Samaritan was Saadi Gaddafi, the then 31-year-old third son of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.



The girl, Bulgarian Dafinka Mircheva, then 21, says it was the start of a six-year relationship that gives a fascinating insight into his family.

Today, as Saadi helps his father cling to power in Libya in his role as an army colonel, she discloses how he squandered millions on his breathtakingly extravagant lifestyle.

Dafinka says his aides told her he spent £170million a year on private jets, five-star hotels, supercars, lap-dancers, jewels and designer clothes.

‘Money was no object,’ she says. ‘He would always have a black suitcase stuffed with thousands of banknotes.

‘If he ran out, he would call the embassy and they would have more delivered to his hotel.’

She says he began a prolonged pursuit of her after that first meeting in 2004 – lavishing her with gifts and proposals of marriage – despite having a wife, the daughter of a commander in the Libyan military.



After she finally agreed to date him, Dafinka says Saadi paid £500,000 for her favourite pop group, The Pussycat Dolls, to perform for her at his birthday party in Cannes in the South of France.

She even made him help secure the release of six Bulgarian nurses being held in Libya, accused of plotting to infect 400 children with HIV.

But she says she also experienced the family’s darker side – and his servants claimed he slapped them. ‘I have no friends, only servants,’ he told her.

Dafinka says Saadi was banned from several five-star hotels and claims that once she walked in on the practising Muslim in bed with another man. Another time, she says he offered her cocaine. She also found him to be like an immature – if spoilt – child, who begged her constantly to love him and enjoyed nothing more than taking his entourage to Disneyland Paris.

She has provided letters apparently from Saadi and a photo of them on a safari trip. Her story is also backed by a leaked U.S. diplomatic cable posted on the WikiLeaks website.



Written by then-U.S. ambassador to Libya in 2009, it stated: ‘Saadi has a troubled past, including scuffles with police in Europe (especially Italy), abuse of drugs and alcohol, excessive partying [and] travel abroad in contravention of his father’s wishes.’

The couple are an unlikely match. She was born to modest parents, a glass-maker and civil servant, in communist Bulgaria. He is the third child of eight born to Libya’s all-powerful ruler.

Chased: Dafinka says Saadi Gaddafi pursued her for six years but she refused to have sex, which 'drove him mad'

But on an evening in May 2004, for very different reasons, they were both at the Pink Paradise club in a Paris business district.

Dafinka, who goes by the stage name Nikki, recalls: ‘I was dancing on the stage and as I turned I saw him sitting there, in a white suit with blonde highlights in his hair, just staring at me.’

For Saadi, it seems, it was love at first sight. Within minutes of being introduced, she says he agreed to pay £1,000-an-hour to talk to her in a private room – but he never asked her to undress.

She says: ‘He ordered Baileys for me and a gin and tonic and at first was coy about who he was. I had to tease it out of him. Eventually he told me his name was Gaddafi. Despite only knowing me for a few hours, he then asked me to go with him to the Caribbean the next day on his jet.’



Shocked, she says she refused. He promised to return.



‘I was dancing on the stage and as I turned I saw him sitting there, in a white suit with blonde highlights in his hair, just staring at me.’

A bizarre courtship began. Dafinka says Saadi would return to Paris by private jet every few weeks to woo her. He was playing football in Italy for Perugia, an ill-fated spell in the country that saw him signed by three clubs but barely play a match.

In Paris, she says he would hire two black limousines and a team of bodyguards. He would book a suite at the £3,500-a-night George V or Plaza Athenee hotels.



She says he would always have an entourage of at least half-a-dozen including his manservant Langy. At the club he would sit with her for hours. But, for more than a year, she says she would not agree to date him.





She says: ‘He was sweet, like a ten-year-old. He told me he was coming to Paris purely to see me. He would see me for three hours and beg me to go out with him. But I was worried about security, that something might happen to me. I was worried about his enemies and worried about him.’

Dafinka says he gave her a love letter on George V hotel notepaper which reads: ‘I fly with wings of love to you . . . I don’t want to lose this feeling . . . you waked me from inside after long time.’



Within a few months, says Dafinka, he gave her £20,000 of Bulgari jewellery – earrings, a ring and necklace made of white gold and studded with diamonds. Still she refused to date him.

She recalls: ‘Then, even though we were not even dating, he asked me to marry him. He said his father would not like it – and it would be difficult while he was still alive – but he still wanted to do it. I started to have feelings for him.



'It’s a long time for someone to keep asking you out. After nearly a year and a half where nothing had happened to me, I felt safer.’

In October 2005, she agreed to a date. They saw the action film Four Brothers, starring Mark Wahlberg, at a £7 cinema on the Champs-Elysees.



‘He held my hand,’ says Dafinka.

Keen hunter: Saadi (left) with an impala he shot while on safari

Soon after, she says he promised her €50,000 (£43,000) as a gift.

Documents seen by The Mail on Sunday show a payment of €50,000 from an account in the British Virgin Islands. Later Saadi bought her a £25,000 Audemars Piguet watch.



Dafinka recalls: ‘After we started going out he came to Paris less frequently. We would go shopping or stay in his hotel suite and he would get drunk.

‘We sometimes slept in the same bed and kissed but I never had sex with him. I didn’t want to as I knew he would sleep with lots of women. And I knew the closer I got to him the more difficult it would be for me and that still scared me. It drove him mad.

‘In his room were black leather suitcases full of cash. He would have £150,000 at any one time.’

She says he bought her £25,000 designer dresses and spent £10,000 on dinner at Raspoutine, a Russian restaurant in Paris. He is said to have owned a purple Bugatti Veyron road car worth £1million.

‘Saadi will never look at the price. He doesn’t care. Someone else always pays the bill.’



She says his stays at hotels like the George V and Plaza Athenee were notorious.

'Sweet': Love letters Dafinka says Saadi Gaddafi sent her on George V hotel headed notepaper

‘He would always have the biggest suite and pay for rooms for his servants. He would get very drunk and play loud music in the middle of the night. The rapper 50 Cent was his favourite.



‘He loved vampire films and he sent a servant out to buy lamb ribs at 2am so he could cook them himself in the room. Other guests would complain about the noise and I believe he got banned from those hotels. Now he stays at Le Meurice, which has a soundproofed suite.’

Neither the George V or Plaza Athenee would comment on the claim that he was banned.



Dafinka claims her proximity to Saadi meant she saw both sides of his personality – the spoilt, autocratic multi-millionaire who considers himself royalty and the emotionally stunted boy.

‘His entourage were mainly Libyans. He would call them all his servants. I told him many times not to tell people that. He told me, “I do what I want. I want to call them servants.”

‘Sometimes he would slap them. He was quite good with me but with others he didn’t care. Once, he found a beggar in the centre of Paris and took him back to his hotel to entertain him.

‘He would always have the biggest suite and pay for rooms for his servants. He would get very drunk and play loud music in the middle of the night. The rapper 50 Cent was his favourite.'

‘He would insist on being called Engineer Saadi. His brother would always be Doctor Mutassim.

‘Another time, I went to his room at Plaza Athenee and found him sleeping in bed with another man. They were under the covers and their top halves were naked. I also saw him take drugs but only once. It was in the private room of a club and he offered me cocaine.’

Other times, especially when they were alone, she says he could be sweet and childish.



‘He could be very funny. When you know how to handle him, he is like a baby.’



He loved Disneyland Paris and would often take a group there, once buying them all Pirates of the Caribbean T-shirts and demanding they wear them, like it or not.

Soon she decided to exploit these vulnerabilities for a positive end.



‘In 2006 he was still bugging me to marry him. Normally if I mentioned his father or his wife, this would put him off. But he kept coming back and begging me. So I gave him an ultimatum: I would like him to free the Bulgarian nurses.’

In 1999, Gaddafi’s regime had arrested six Bulgarian nurses and accused them of being agents of Israel’s Mossad agents who planned to infect 400 children with HIV.

Like father, like son: Despite his connections, Saadi did not like talking about his family, including his father, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi

Dafinka says: ‘It was widely seen as a conspiracy theory on Gaddafi’s part but his son seemed to believe it. But he said to show how much he loved me he would talk to his brother Saif, who was dealing with the case. Eventually he told me they would be freed during 2007, which they were. To this day I don’t know if they were released because of me or if they were going to be released anyway.’

At the time, it was reported they had been freed after a mission to Libya by Cecilia Sarkozy, then wife of French President Nicolas.

The most extravagant gift was yet to come.



‘In early 2007, he asked me who my favourite band were. I said The Pussycat Dolls. He said he would organise it so I could see them.’



For his birthday, she says he rented a £8,000-a-day Arabic-style villa in Cannes. As 30 guests enjoyed Cristal champagne, Lenôtre chocolates, caviar and cigars, The Pussycat Dolls played in front of the pool.

Two years later, the Dafinka and Saadi visited Tanzania for a week-long safari, staying in £600-a-night lodges. She says: ‘He killed an impala. I remember him asking, “What other gaming do you have for royalty?” He saw himself as the son of a king.’

It is from this trip that she has the only photo of them together. She says: ‘He is a very paranoid person. He doesn’t like pictures.’

She adds: ‘If you asked him about his family, he would get angry. If his father closed the tap there would be no money, so he is not going to say anything bad. Once, his wife came to Paris and he put her in one hotel and he stayed in a second.’



After Saadi stopped playing football in Italy – he made just two substitute appearances in four years with three Serie A clubs – Dafinka saw less of him and they grew apart.

She says: ‘When we saw each other last year he was moody and refused to talk. I have no idea why. I last saw him in November. With what’s happening in Libya, I don’t expect to hear from him again.



'I feel bad for the people there. If they want freedom, give them freedom. Isn’t 41 years enough? But I do not link Saadi to what is happening there. It is his father who is doing all the damage.’

On learning how Saadi has been spending their money, most Libyans will doubtless violently disagree.