Party time as Gaddafi’s Libya turns 40

MILITARY bands, 400 dancers, aerobatic planes and fireworks last night electrified a hot and drowsy Tripoli as its leader Muammar Gaddafi threw Libya’s biggest party to mark four decades since taking power.

The six days of celebrations across the north African country were designed to get the message to the world that the long-isolated oil exporter was open again for business after years of heavy sanctions, organisers said.

But controversy stalked Gaddafi, with the US and Britain angry at the “hero’s welcome” that Tripoli gave former Libyan agent Abdel Basset al-Megrahi who was freed by Scotland last month from a life sentence for the Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people.