Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, embroiled in several sex scandals, is said to have helped Col Muammar Gaddafi gain the African Union's leadership two years back by arranging to send two escort women for an opponent of the Libyan leader, a media report said.

According to Nuri Al Mismari, who was Col Gaddafi's diplomatic chief for 35 years before he went into exile in Paris last year, an unidentified African leader was opposing the election of the Libyan leader in 2009, but the situation was "resolved with an unorthodox solution".