Libya claims stake in Saadi Gaddafi’s $1.6M Toronto condo

Tyler Anderson/ The condo building at 10 Navy Wharf Cr. that houses the condo owned by Saadi Gaddafi.

National Post

Saadi Gadhafi speaks during a press conference in Tripoli, 2010. The Libyan government has set its eyes on a deluxe apartment in the Toronto skyline.

A lavish lakefront condo owned by the son of toppled despot Muammar Gadhafi has been claimed by Lybian authorities that assumed control of the North African nation following an uprising that deposed the government last year.

The National Post reports the Libyan government has filed an application with Ontario's land registry office claiming ownership of the condo owned by Saadi Gadhafi.

With the help of the United Nations, Lybia has been moving to reclaim the Gadhafi family's billions of dollars worth of international assets, claiming they are the rightful property of the Libyan people.

Tim Wimborne-Reuters/Saadi Gaddafi, the third son of Muammar Gaddafi, in 2005.

Saadi's Toronto condo had apparently went unnoticed until the National Post's Stewart Bell reported on it in December.

Saadi, the former leader of Libya's Special Forces and once-footballer, has already been ordered to turn over the keys of an eight-bedroom British mansion reportedly purchased with Libyan oil funds.

According to BBC, Saadi, considered the playboy and black sheep of the Gadhafi clan, was granted asylum in Niger after his family's government was toppled last year. An effort to smuggle him into Mexico was stopped by that government in December.

Michael Lamb, a real estate law professor at the University of Western Ontario, told the Post that Gadhafi cannot sell the Toronto condo until the Libyan government's claim has been dealt with in court.

He was probably waiting for the housing market to turn around, anyway.