Secret dossier reveals Gaddafi’s UK spy links

The extraordinary extent of co-operation between MI6, the CIA and Libyan intelligence during the rule of Col Muammar Gaddafi was exposed on Saturday by the release of secret documents found in Tripoli.

MI6 and the CIA were instrumental in the attempts by former Prime Minister Tony Blair to bring Col Gaddafi “in from the cold, A cache of papers found at the intelligence headquarters dating from the time it was run by Moussa Koussa, who later became foreign minister and defected in March, showed Libya was handed Islamist opposition members as part of the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” programme.

MI6 also provided extensive information to the Libyan authorities of opponents living in Britain.

The British intelligence services seem to have been more circumspect than their American colleagues, however. Often the files, which were found by Human Rights Watch and shown to The Sunday Telegraph, suggest they restricted themselves to confirming information already known to the Libyans.

It also shows one reason for the co-operation - MI6’s belief that Libyan Islamists were playing a central role in funding and supporting al-Qaeda, often via contacts in Iran.

MI6 and the CIA were instrumental in the attempts by former Prime Minister Tony Blair to bring Col Gaddafi “in from the cold”, and started at the time the alleged Lockerbie bombers were handed over for trial in The Hague.

In return for compensating victims of the Lockerbie bombing and other terrorist outrages, and surrendering its programme for weapons of mass destruction, diplomatic relations were resumed and sanctions dropped. The documents give details of how much further subsequent co-operation went between Libya and the West. They confirm that Abdulhakim Belhadj, now leader of the Tripoli Military Council under the rebel government, was flown by the CIA to Libya for interrogation and imprisonment in 2004. A letter giving details of the flight asks Libya to ensure that he and his wife are “treated humanely”.

Mr Belhadj has already claimed he was tortured in a foreign prison before being sent back to Libya.

The MI6 documents, several of them between Mark Allen, a senior intelligence officer who now advises BP, and Moussa Koussa, pass on phone numbers and other information on a number of Libyan Islamists, including some with indefinite leave to remain in Britain.

One, identified as Ismail Kamoka, had this status despite being thought to be a fund-raiser for Islamist extremist groups and to be using contacts in Iran to arrange the provision of false documents to al-Qaeda operatives based there. The government refused to comment last night. William Hague, the foreign secretary, told Sky News: “On the subject of these apparent disclosures... 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.”

Courtesy: The Telegraph