When it comes to carrying out original research, few PhD students have access to one of the world’s most prestigious corporate consultancies, with advisers including the former head of the Secret Intelligence Service.

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi used Monitor Group to carry out a survey and interviews with the leaders of non-governmental organisations to provide the empirical data for his thesis at the London School of Economics.

Senior advisers at Monitor Group include Sir Richard Dearlove, who was recruited in 2005, the year after he retired as head of MI6. Sir Richard was well known to the Libyans because Colonel Gaddafi had chosen British intelligence as the go-between when he decided to surrender his country’s nuclear programme.

The company also employs Sir Mark Allen, another former MI6 agent and a senior adviser to BP. Sir Mark lobbied Jack Straw just before the Justice Secretary abandoned efforts to exclude the Lockerbie bomber from a prisoner transfer deal.

Mr Gaddafi hired the company in 2004 to outline a strategy for economic reform that has seen Libya opened up to investment from international businesses, particularly in the oil sector.

When Mr Gaddafi started his PhD he worked with the Monitor Group to undertake a survey that involved “lengthy” interviews with 45 representatives of inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations, including senior executives at the United Nations and the World Bank.

Mr Gaddafi records work carried out by the group and thanks “a number of individuals” at Monitor in his acknowledgements at the beginning of his thesis.

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