Dr George Joffe, a Cambridge academic in the Politics Department, was paid to advise on a research project at the LSE funded by Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, leaked documents revealed.

Saif al-Islam, an alumnus of LSE, had donated £1.5 million to LSE’s North Africa research programme. The purported aims of the project were to place Libya ‘within the wider context of the region’, and to investigate ‘the specific issues and challenges facing Libya’. The project is now suspended.

Dr George Joffe responded to the leak saying, "LSE like most British universities has to find funding where it can. Funding from Middle Eastern states is commonplace, particularly from oil rich states." He dismissed the media attention on his participation in the project as "a piece of slightly muck raking journalism". He also said that “In my case I’m just an academic adviser. It’s not for me to decide where the money comes from.”

He remonstrated further: “He’s [Saif] not been involved in any unpleasantness of the regime… but now because the regime is about to fall everyone’s looking for reasons to attack anyone who had any contact with it, so they decided to attack the LSE.”

The decision to accept the funding was made by officials at the LSE. Sir Howard Davies, the director of the LSE, told the BBC: "We thought that since he was not going to control the research that this was a reasonable thing to do and this was supported widely in the school.

"It was debated at some length. We took a risk on that and I think it's right to say that that risk backfired on us. I feel embarrassed about it but I don't think the decision was made without due consideration at the time."

Other academics involved in the project include Prof David Held, who was an academic advisor to Saif while at LSE, and Alia Brahimi. According to the leaked documents, Prof David Held visited Libya in 2009 as part of the programme, and Alia Brahimi visited Saif in Greece in July 2010 to discuss "objectives and expectations" before visiting Libya as well.

Dr Joffe has written positively on Saif as a potential reformer for Libya (see http://www.carnegieendowment.org/arb/?fa=show&article=24686).

The LSE will now discuss proposals on spending the remaining money from the donation on scholarships for Libyan students.