thedailybeast.com Sheet

The fleeing dictator left behind a lair hidden in Libya’s largest university, with a Jacuzzi, a cozy double bed—and gynecological equipment…

A few times a year, Muammar Gaddafi ventured out to the campus of Fateh University in Tripoli to deliver lectures to students in Green Hall, a 450-seat auditorium with a large stage. None of the students or faculty could have guessed what the Saharan madman kept hidden on the first floor of the same building: a love den. “What we found is shocking,” says Faisal Krekshi, 55, the new dean of the university which has now been renamed Tripoli University. “This was Gaddafi’s place. Only he and his people had access to it.”

Behind a set of locked doors there’s a room with a cozy double bed, flowery carpets, and small lamps that casts off a warm orange glow. In an adjoining bathroom there’s a Jacuzzi with water jets. Some faculty members say the dictator brought his mistresses to the room, others ask whether he raped female students there. It gets weirder. A couple of doors down there’s a full gynecological examination room. “There’s a gyne bed—what the hell is it doing in here?” asks Krekshi, an OB/GYN doctor who has worked at the university for 14 years but had no knowledge of the facility. “I think it’s here for illegal abortions.”

As the security situation in Tripoli has improved in the past week, Libyans are slowly coming to terms with Gaddafi’s bizarre legacy and trying to figure out how to move ahead. They must decide how to remove the former regime’s influence without completely destroying the remaining institutions, and how to deal with the loyalists who propped up the dictator for more than four decades. The changes taking place at Tripoli University provide a glimpse of how difficult the task will be. Aside from the love den, rebel fighters who secured the campus also found a makeshift prison and an office used by intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi…