Just a week before French fighter jets launched the first strikes against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s military in March 2011, the leader’s son Saif al-Islam met TIME in a hotel suite in Tripoli, and delivered a stark warning to then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy. “Mr. Sarkozy cannot play with us forever,” Saif said, wagging his finger on camera during the long interview, which took place after midnight in the swank Rixos Hotel in Libya’s capital Tripoli.