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News > World News > Libyan rebel leader Abdul Hakim Belhaj seeks apology for CIA, MI6 torture

Libyan rebel leader Abdul Hakim Belhaj seeks apology for CIA, MI6 torture

Updated: 06 Sep 2011

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Read more on Abdul Hakim Belhaj alleged MI6 torture

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One of Libya's senior rebel commanders has demanded an apology from the British and US governments following the discovery of secret documents that show MI6 and the CIA were involved in a plot that led to his capture and torture.

The security commander in Tripoli, Abdul Hakim Belhaj, said he was considering suing over the episode.

One document found in a treasure trove of abandoned papers shows a senior MI6 officer boasting to the Libyans about how British intelligence led to Mr Belhaj being captured on March 6, 2004.

Then a leading member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, Mr Belhaj was seized in Bangkok and handed over to the CIA, who, he alleges, tortured him and injected him with truth serum before flying him back to Tripoli for interrogation.

Documents show that five days before he was taken back to Tripoli, MI6 gave Libya Mr Belhaj's French and Moroccan aliases, and told them he was in detention in Sepang, Malaysia.

''What happened to me was illegal and deserves an apology,'' he told BBC News.

Mr Belhaj said British spies were among the first to interrogate him after he was returned to Tripoli, and he was very ''surprised that the British got involved in what was a very painful period in my life''.

Mr Belhaj was released from Abu Selim prison earlier this year after an amnesty from Muammar Gaddafi. He quickly took a lead role in the anti-government rebellion that ousted Gaddafi two weeks ago.

''This will not stop the new Libya having orderly relations with the United States and Britain,'' he said. ''But it did not need to happen.''

Scores of files, which were found abandoned at the British embassy and in the offices of senior members of the former regime, not only point to direct involvement of MI6 in this case, they also set out in sometimes excruciating detail how closely British agencies were working with Libyan officials after Gaddafi came in from the diplomatic cold in 2004.

The papers also show how MI5 appeared to seek a trade of information about Libyan dissidents in London for morsels of intelligence gleaned from Tripoli, despite Libya's reputation for torturing prisoners.

British public service officials defended the links with Libya, saying the agencies were conducting themselves in line with ''ministerially authorised government policy''.

Britain's Foreign Minister, William Hague, tried to sidestep the controversy surrounding the documents, saying they ''relate to a period under the previous government, so I have no knowledge of those, of what was happening behind the scenes at that time''.

SOURCE: Sydney Morning Herald

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