Documents retrieved by Human Rights Watch from Colonel Gaddafi’s former intelligence chief reveal embarrassingly close ties between the regime and western intelligence services.
The documents, found in the offices of Moussa Koussa, Gaddafi’s former right-hand man who has since defected, implicate the CIA in the rendition of suspects to the Libyan security forces, and suggest that MI6 gave the Gaddafi regime details of Libyan dissidents. Koussa, Libya’s spy chief before he became Foreign Minister is suspected by human rights groups of involvement in the torture of Libyan prisoners; the British Government came under pressure to arrest him when he defected to the UK earlier this year. He has since moved to Qatar.
The files are believed to originate from a period of rapprochement between Gaddafi and the West, with Tony Blair instrumental in bringing the despot back into the international fold.