Friends of Colonel Gaddafi have tonight sensationally revealed he has refused to leave Libya because he is frightened of flying.
They say that Colonel Gaddafi's phobia of getting on a plane is so serious that he has chosen to die in his country instead of fly to the safety of venezuela.
Like many other people's fear of flying, Colonel Gaddaffi's phobia began the night of the Lockerbie disaster. Once he saw how easy it was to bring down a plane, and get away with it, he decided never to set foot on an aeroplane ever again.
"Colonel Gaddafi has a very bad memory, though" said a defector from the former Libyan regime. "And quite a few times he nearly got on a plane before remembering he was scared of flying. So just to make sure he never forgot, he had a great big statue made up of his own hand crushing a western plane, and then he put it in his garden."
He also made up a mantra to go with it. "If I can crush their plane, they can crush my plane, so I'm not getting on anybody's plane."
It has worked up until this very day.
But the defector also said Colonel feels a lot of sorrow about the Lockerbie. He is reported to have said, "It destroyed all my future holidays. I've never been able to go to Sharm al Sheik or Ibiza. Everyone has their tragedies. This is mine"
Colonel Gaddafi continues to cling to power in Libya.
By Katarina Frogpond
