Libyan ‘rendered on Jack Straw’s orders’ interviewed by British police

One senior British intelligence officer, Sir Mark Allen, wrote to the head of
Libyan intelligence, Moussa Koussa: “I congratulate you on the safe
arrival of [Mr Belhadj]. This was the least we could do for you and for
Libya. I know I did not pay for the air cargo [but] the intelligence [on
him] was British.”

In six years of imprisonment, Mr Belhadj says he was starved, hooded, hung up
by his wrists, repeatedly beaten and subjected to electric shocks.

He was interviewed in Libya by agents from a number of Western intelligence
services, including Britain’s. His pregnant wife, abducted with him, was
also threatened, imprisoned and deprived of food.

“The thing that really hurts me is that the British government
co-operated with this tyranny,” he said.

Police are expected to interview Sir Mark and Mr Straw, Foreign Secretary at
the time, who says that he does not recall approving the rendition.

“The position of successive Foreign Secretaries, including me, is that we
were opposed to unlawful rendition, opposed to torture or similar methods,
and not only did we not agree with it, we were not complicit in it, nor did
we turn a blind eye to it,” Mr Straw has said, adding: “No Foreign
Secretary can know all the details of what intelligence services are doing
at any one time.”

However, Sir Richard Dearlove, then head of MI6, insisted: “It was a
political decision, having very significantly disarmed Libya, for the
Government to co-operate with Libya on Islamist terrorism.”

Mr Belhadj, and another LIFG leader rendered to torture, Sami al-Saadi, are
also bringing civil actions against the British Government, Sir Mark and Mr
Straw personally. The criminal investigation was launched by the Director of
Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, in January.

Mr Belhadj’s and Mr al-Saadi’s allegations, were “so serious that it is
in the public interest for them to be investigated now,” a joint
statement by Mr Starmer and the Met’s assistant commissioner, Lynne Owens,
said.

In a separate development, Scotland Yard announced that two detectives from
its Counter-Terrorism Command arrived in Tripoli on Tuesday as part of
renewed investigations into the murder of WPc Yvonne Fletcher.

WPc Fletcher, 25, was killed by shots fired from the Libyan Embassy in London
in 1984 as she policed an anti-Gaddafi demonstration. As revealed by The
Daily Telegraph on Monday, Libya and Britain are to establish a joint
investigative team in an effort to find her alleged killer, named as Salah
Eddin Khalifa by a senior adviser to the Libyan prime minister.

The officers, a detective sergeant and a detective inspector, are expected to
remain in Tripoli for “several days,” the Met said. They would “take
forward preliminary discussions they held last month, with a view to working
jointly to identify who was responsible for WPc Fletcher’s murder.”

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