How Sara Bronfman’s Husband Basit Igtet Tried to Overthrow Libya With Raniere’s Help

Basit Igtet, the high-living Muslim married to Jewish liquor heiress Sara Rosner Bronfman, held a rally on September 25, 2017 in Tripoli to try to overthrow the American-backed government of Libya.

Igtet’s plan was to use Facebook and social media to rally tens of thousands of the poor of Tripoli to take to the streets and eventually join with radical Muslim militants outside the city. Once the forces converged and vanquished the UN-backed Libyan government, Igtet wanted to be installed as president.

The plan failed when no one appeared at the rally at Martyrs Square in Tripoli until after the Libyan government provided ample security for the safety of Igtet and supporters.

About 1,000 Libyan bystanders turned out to see the event, many of them straggling in, staying for a time, then going home.  About 1,000 anti-Igtet Libyans came and called for Igtet to be thrown out of Libya.

Once Igtet was safely behind the protective cordon of Libyan government security forces, his timid supporters came out for their “protest”. An estimated 700 supporters appeared.

Igtet did not even make a speech.

Igtet himself arrived at the last minute to Tripoli, flying in on a private jet paid for by his wife, on the morning of the protest, and headed to Martyrs’ Square expecting to greet a vast throng. When Igtet arrived, he found more people calling for his removal from Libya than those supporting him.

Anti-Igtet protesters accused him of being a front for Qatar, the Muslim Brotherhood and other hardliners in the former Libya Dawn movement. Fortunately for Igtet, he was protected by security forces of the government he sought to overthrow.

Some noted the irony of Igtet trying to install himself as president through violence of fundamentalist Muslims, while funded by his Jewish wife, an heiress of the Seagram’s liquor fortune. Fundamentalist Muslims are forbidden to drink alcohol and hate Jews. Libyan law does not allow a man who marries a non-Libyan to become president.

Prior to meeting Igtet in 2012, Sara Bronfman seduced the assistant for the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan monk, Lama Tenzin Donden. Lama Tenzin arranged for the Dalai Lama to speak in Albany on a cult-arranged speaking engagement in 2009.  Bronfman was said to be broken-hearted by Lama Tenzin’s departure the following year.

Not long afterward, she met the fortune hunting Igtet. When Bronfman seduced the gigolo, she did not know about his impecunious status and thought Igtet was as wealthy as she was.  It is not clear when Igtet broke the news that she would have to fund his lifestyle.

It is said that Bronfman went to her Vanguard to ask him to teach her husband. He agreed and set the stage for his demonstration at Martyrs Square, planning the entire event for Igtet, assuring him, that, as the smartest man in the world, it would work out wondrously well.

While Igtet wanted to rule Libya, he had no desire to spend time in that benighted country. As soon as the last stragglers paraded by in the afternoon of the Tripoli event, Igtet headed to Zliten. and then left Libya. The demonstration had no effect on the political situation other than being seen as a failed attempt to align Igtet with strong anti-Jew Muslim radicals.

While the demonstration was going on, Sara Bronfman was busy tweeting about Meryl Streep, Jimmy Stewart and a children’s book called ‘My Little Angel.”

Igtet’s security adviser for the event, Bashir Garira, died in a shooting incident just hours after Igtet left the rally to overthrow the government of Libya. Garira was found shot to death outside his home in Suq Al-Juma.  His family said he shot himself accidentally with a gun. Libyans know such family announcements can be a euphemism for assassination.

It is suspected that Muslim extremists, holed up in desert hideouts outside Tripoli, had been promised by Garira that Igtet would marshal a huge force of insurgents at his rally in Tripoli. The radical groups expended scant resources to mobilize, but were ready to merge with the alleged “tens of thousands” of Igtet-supporters. When nobody showed up in Tripoli, the Muslim radicals had to retreat to secure hideouts.

UN-backed Libyan forces beefed up armed militias and gained a tactical advantage by uncovering possible locations from where radical Muslims retreated, thus potentially compromising their safety and future Islamic missions.

Whether Garira’s “accidental death” was a reprisal for his role in the Igtet fiasco may never be known.

Igtet’s father reportedly embezzled millions of Libyan money and was put in jail where he died under the Qaddai regime.

Sara Bronfman inherited an estimated $500 million from her late father, Edgar Bronfman Sr. of the Seagram’s liquor fortune. Her father had also been president of the World Jewish Congress. Bronfman lost a substantial part of her inheritance in investments guided by Raniere.