Moammar Khadafy wanted to be bold and beautiful.
The Libyan strongman underwent cosmetic surgery in 1995, instructing a plastic surgeon to give him hair plugs and remove his belly fat to inject into his wrinkly face, a Brazilian doctor claims.
"He told me that he had been in power for 25 years at that time, and that he did not want the young people of his nation to see him as an old man," Dr. Liacyr Ribeiro recounted to The Associated Press. "I recommended a face-lift, but he refused" because he feared it would look too obvious.
Khadafy insisted the secret, four-hour surgery be done with local anesthesia because he wanted to be alert throughout the entire procedure.
The surgeon told Brazilian weekly Epoca that he's speaking out now - as Khadafy fights rebels and Western coalition forces - because he wanted "to contribute to understanding this historic figure around whom there is much speculation but little information."
In this photo provided by Brazilian doctor Liacyr Ribeiro, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, left, and Brazilian plastic surgeon Dr. Liacyr Ribeiro pose for a photo in Tripoli, Libya in 1994.? Riberio, a noted Brazilian plastic surgeon, says? he performed middle-of-the night cosmetic surgery on Gadhafi 16 years ago. (Liacyr Ribeiro/AP)
Ribeiro said he had been contacted in 1994 by then-Libyan Health Minister Mohamed Zaid while attending a conference in Tripoli. After the lecture, Zaid approached him and said he wanted to introduce him to someone special.
Ribeiro thought he was going to be introduced to Zaid's wife. But the government official drove Ribeiro to a guarded home, where he met Khadafy. The surgery was scheduled for the next year.
Halfway through the procedure - which took place in the middle of the night - Khadafy took a break and ate a hamburger, said the prominent doctor, who is said to have performed cosmetic surgery on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Khadafy was 53 years old at the time of the surgery. After he went under the knife, Ribeiro said, Khadafy looked like a youthful 45-year-old.
Dr. Fabio Naccache, another Brazilian doctor who was part of the surgery team, confirmed Ribeiro's claims to the Associated Press.
The doctor told Khadafy, who's noticeably wrinklier today at the age of 68, that the results would last only five years.
Ribeiro said Khadafy requested another procedure five years ago but that Ribeiro had a family obligation at the time. "They never called me again," he said.
ashahid@nydailynews.com
With News Wire Services
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