Libyan Tycoon Husni Bey Tells All

“They all want to be like Husni Bey, yes. For many kids, for many youth, for many grown-ups, I’m the role model for them,” says Husni Bey Husni, on an early November visit to his office. “They maybe don’t like me. They may hate me, but if you tell them how you want to be? They will tell you like Husni Bey. It’s not vanity, but this is what they keep telling everybody.”

Later in the afternoon, swerving through Tripoli in his black Infiniti FX45, Bey is headed to his brother’s home. We drive by an old beach club, now just rubble. Bey mentions that he’d been a member in the 1960s. Qaddafi’s kids decided to take the land for themselves and build villas on the beach, then Qaddafi got angry with the project and razed it to the ground. “Look, just look what they did here,” Bey says, craning his neck to survey the extent of the ugliness. This morning, Tripoli reeks of burning garbage. The shoreline is covered in haze. The beach is in ruins, just mangled concrete from compound walls and piles of trash everywhere. “This was an amazing place,” he says as we turn the corner.