Anyone buying it? I didn’t think so.

TRIPOLI — Tripoli’s military commander, an Islamist whose rise to prominence is being watched closely by the West, said on Sunday he wanted to build a democratic “civil state” in Libya in remarks that laid out an inclusive political vision after 42 years of despotism under Muammar Gaddafi.

In a Reuters interview, Abdel Hakim Belhadj added that he expected Gaddafi’s complete defeat very soon, and that Tripoli was stabilizing gradually in a process that would lead eventually to the return to the streets of a police service open to revolutionary fighters who sought to participate in it.

Dressed in military fatigues and seated on a sofa in a reception room at an upscale Tripoli hotel, the soft-spoken Belhadj, in his late 40s, reiterated that he wanted an apology from Britain for what he said was its role in transferring him to Libya under Gaddafi, a move he said violated his human rights.