LIBYAN LEADER COLONEL Muammar Gaddafi has a reputation for eccentric behaviour, but his recent trip to Italy has still managed to raise a few eyebrows.

Gaddafi was in Rome to meet with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to commemorate the 2008 accord under which Rome agreed to pay colonial-related reparations to Tripoli. The €5bn deal also allows Rome to build a 1,240 mile long motorway along the Libyan coast.

More controversially, the countries have also agreed on a joint effort to prevent African immigrants from reaching Italy.

The event that has most caught the most attention during Gaddafi’s visit, however, was his religious lecture to a group of Italian women.

Flanked by his “Amazonian bodyguards”, Gaddafi addressed a group of a bout 200 young women – all glamour models and all paid to attend – about the merits of Islam and encouraged them to convert if they were not already Muslim.

The Libyan leader reportedly spoke to another group of women, hired by the same agency, on the previous day and gave them all copies of the Qur’an and said that all Europeans should convert.

It would seem this approach is one that Gaddafi particularly likes, as he did the same thing last November. He reportedly placed an ad that read:

Seeking attractive girls between 18 and 35 years old, at least 1.7 metres (5 foot, 7 inches) tall, well-dressed but not in miniskirts or low cut dresses.