Blair kidnapped disidents and shipped them to Libya for Gaddafi to torture

Tony Blair wrote to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi to thank him for the “excellent cooperation” between the two countries’ counter-terrorism agencies following a period during which the UK and Libya worked together to arrange for Libyan dissidents to be kidnapped and flown to Tripoli, along with their families.

The letter, written in 2007, followed a period in which the dictator’s intelligence officers were permitted to operate in the UK, approaching and intimidating Libyan refugees in an attempt to persuade them to work as informants for both countries’ agencies.

Addressed “Dear Mu’ammar” and signed “Best wishes yours ever, Tony”, the letter was among hundreds of pages of documents recovered from Libyan government offices following the 2011 revolution and pieced together by a team of London lawyers.

The lawyers are bringing damages claims on behalf of a dozen Gaddafi opponents who were targeted by the two countries’ agencies during the covert cooperation. The claimants were variously detained and allegedly mistreated in Saudi Arabia, rendered from Mali to Libya, or detained and subjected to control orders in the UK.

Full story at The Guardian

Life After Qaddafi — Libya: A Broken State

Three years after the Libyan revolution and the subsequent downfall of its dictator Muammar Qaddafi, the country has descended further into chaos and insecurity. Rebel militias, radical Islamists and former Qaddafi commander Khalifa Haftar are among the different groups vying for power and oil wealth, creating a vacuum in which violence and militancy reign supreme.

VICE News

Inquiry into MI6 role in abduction and torture of Libyans

Scotland Yard has opened a criminal investigation into secret MI6 rendition operations that resulted in leading Libyan dissidents being abducted and flown to Tripoli, where they were subsequently tortured in Muammar Gaddafi's prisons.

The announcement came as the Metropolitan police and the director of public prosecutions, Keir Starmer, said there was insufficient evidence to prosecute individual MI5 or MI6 agents following lengthy investigations into allegations of British complicity in the torture of terrorism suspects in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The new investigation is to focus on Abdul Hakim Belhaj, a military commander of forces that opposed Gaddafi's rule, and Sami al-Saadi, who lodged complaints with the police last November after the chance discovery of a cache of classified documents in an abandoned Libyan government office laid bare the role MI6 played in their rendition.

Saadi was detained in Hong Kong in 2004 and then forced on to a plane to Tripoli with his wife and four children in an operation that MI6 mounted in co-operation with Gaddafi's intelligence chief, Moussa Koussa.

Belhaj was detained in Bangkok after an MI6 tip-off and allegedly tortured by US agents for several days before being flown to Tripoli, where he was imprisoned for several years and tortured.

The Guardian

But:

British spies escaped immediate criminal charges over torture complicity Thursday, but the country's top prosecutor ordered a new investigation into claims that intelligence shared with Moammar Gadhafi's regime led to the torture or rendition of Libyans.

Prosecutors have been investigating claims of mistreatment by detainees who were eventually sent to the United States prison in Guantanamo, Cuba. Most of the torture allegations come from terror suspects who were either initially held in Pakistan and Afghanistan, or sent to other countries such as Morocco for interrogation.

AP

Saif al-Islam Gaddafi arrested in Libya

Muammar Gaddafi's son and one-time heir apparent Saif al-Islam has been detained in the southern desert, Libya's interim justice minister and other officials have said.

Fighters from the western mountain city of Zintan announced his capture on Saturday as gunfire and car horns marked jubilation across the country at the arrest of the British-educated 39-year-old who a year ago seemed set to follow his father as Libya's leader.
Saif al-Islam and three armed companions were taken without a fight during the night, officials said. Gaddafi's son was reportedly not injured, unlike Gaddafi himself, who was killed last month after being captured by fighters in his home town of Sirte. More on AlJazeera - Libya pledges 'fair trial' for Saif al-Islam

Mutassim Qadhafi meets Hilary Clinton at Washington

Hilary Clinton is very pleased to meet with Qadhafi 's son
Washington DC, April 21, 2009 - LiveLeak.com

Gaddafi's Murder and International Law

The Real News - Clinton jubilant over Gaddafi's death: "We came, we saw, he died"

Also see Charlie V  - Al Muatassim Al Gaddafi captured alive before being tortured and murdered

Gaddafi as orator: a life in quotes

Gaddafi seems dead, picture on The Guardian.

Former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi died of wounds suffered on Thursday as fighters battling to complete an eight-month-old uprising against his rule overran his hometown Sirte, Libya’s interim rulers said. See latest on Al Arabiya – Bloodied but not dead: last moments of former Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi following fall of Sirte. Amateur video has emerged of Colonel Gaddafi apparently wounded but still alive.

As soon as Muammar Gaddafi seized power in Libya in 1969, at the age of 27, he launched into a perplexing and controversial career as a speech-maker that now spans more than 40 decades.  In scattershot diatribes that at times stretched to several hours, Gaddafi astounded audience at Libya and abroad.
Famously dubbed the "mad dog of the Middle East" by Ronald Reagan, the former president of the US, Gaddafi did little to dispel that nickname in his wild orations and writings. In 1975, he outlined his political philosophy in "The Green Book" which carried the subtitle, ""The Solution to the Problems of Democracy; The Social Basis to the Third Universal Theory."

No matter how he is remembered by history, Gaddafi’s legacy as an orator is assured. Here are some famous Gaddafi-isms from his nearly 42 years in power:

"I am an international leader, the dean of the Arab rulers, the king of kings of Africa and the imam of Muslims, and my international status does not allow me to descend to a lower level."
— Remarks to a crowd including King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and having his microphone cut on March 30, 2009, as quoted by The Scotsman in the article "Gaddafi walks out of summit after attack on Saudi king" by Salah Nasrawi.

"If a community of people wears white on a mournful occasion and another dresses in black, then one community would like white and dislike black and the other would like black and dislike white. Moreover, this attitude leaves a physical effect on the cells as well as on the genes in the body."
— Excerpt from "The Green Book" (1975)

More on Al Jazeera English

The destruction of Sirte

The Libyan city of Sirte is being systematically destroyed by National Transitional Council "rebel" fighters and NATO fighter planes. The operation stands as a monumental war crime, for which primary responsibility rests with the leading forces behind the military intervention in Libya—US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sirte has been under siege for weeks. TNC forces have prevented all supplies from entering the city, including food, medicines, and other basic necessities. NATO bombs have rained down, together with a heavy and indiscriminate bombardment by TNC mortars, tank shells, and rockets. Basic infrastructure—including water, electricity, and sewerage systems—has been destroyed as part of the calculated effort to trigger a humanitarian crisis in the city and terrorise its inhabitants into submission.
Every building in Sirte, including apartment blocks, homes, hospitals, schools, and other civilian structures, has either been levelled or severely damaged by the "rebel" forces trying to finally take the city. Militiamen are looting homes, cars, and shops, with truckloads of residents’ stolen possessions now leaving Sirte every day. - uruknet.info

Ruined Sirte becomes a killing ground as Gaddafi loyalists face destruction – The Telegraph

‘Qaddafi protected by Tuareg’

Libya's new rulers believe Muammar Qaddafi may be hiding in the southern desert, possibly in a vast area near the Algerian border, under the protection of ethnic Tuareg fighters, an official said Wednesday.

Revolutionary forces gained control of Tripoli and much of the rest of the North African nation late last month, but the longtime leader fled and has been trying to rally supporters from hiding as fighting continues on three fronts. His sons also escaped and there have been several unconfirmed reports about their whereabouts. (CBS)

Rebel Touareg leader Ibrahim Ag Bahanga, rumoured to have acquired weapons from Libya and recruited some 20,000 al-Qaeda fighters in support of Moamer Kadhafi, died recently under suspicious circumstances. What implications does Bahanga’s death have on the stability of the Sahel region?
Zawaya Magharebia

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of ethnic Tuaregs left Mali to fight for Muammar Qaddafi. Now, some are returning home to tell their story on The Atlantic

Also see The Tuareg Rebellion of 2007-2009 on Wikipedia

Links between Gaddafi Regime and British Intelligence

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.

More on huffingtonpost.co.uk

The Libyan Civil War: Critical Views: The Tripoli Massacres

There are a multitude of aspects to what's going on right now in Libya, Tripoli in particular things I don't know well enough - but one aspect is emerging and grabs my attention - a side-effect of the near-total liberation of the capitol is literally blood flowing in the streets. At least one journalist has captured some of the horror of it as armed butchers from one side or another massacre fighters and civilians alike in growing numbers all across the city.

So far I have one rather stark, and detailed, article by Hadeel al-Shalchi, AP, Aug 26:
Fight 'the rats,' Gadhafi urges as rebels push on.

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — The streets where rebel fighters bombarded snipers loyal to Moammar Gadhafi were strewn with bullet-ridden corpses from both sides Thursday. Streams of blood ran down the gutters and turned sewers red.
By sundown the rebels appeared to have won the battle for the Abu Salim neighborhood, next to Gadhafi's captured Tripoli compound [...] Outside his Bab al-Aziziya compound, which rebels captured Tuesday, there was another grim scene — one that suggested mass, execution-style killings of civilians.
About two dozen bodies — some with their hands bound by plastic ties and with bullet wounds to the head — lay scattered on grassy lots in an area where Gadhafi sympathizers had camped out for months.
The identities of the dead were unclear, but they were in all likelihood activists who had set up an impromptu tent city in solidarity with Gadhafi in defiance of the NATO bombing campaign.
Five or six bodies were in a tent erected on a roundabout that had served as a field clinic. One of the dead still had an IV in his arm, and another body was completely charred, its legs missing. The body of a doctor, in his green hospital gown, was found dumped in the canal.

More on The Libyan Civil War Blog

More TRIPOLI HORRORS REVEALED on BBC and War Crime Claims After Bodies Found on SKY

‫( هههههه ) Gaddafi's Hat Remix

Also see the Zenga Zenga Song - Noy Alooshe Remix

Rebel wears Gaddafi's Hat

Some journalists covering events in Libya are “not real journalists”

Global Research journalist Mahdi Nazemroaya says he fears for his life and is being threatened for “not going by what NATO is presenting” as news out of Libya. He says he believes that some of the journalists covering events are “not real journalists”, but are instead working for security services.

Gaddafi Regime Crumbling

In the Washington Post, David Ignatius writes that Gaddafi's family has reportedly been moving money and assets outside Libya over the past five days.

A sign that the implosion may at last be happening is the reported transfer of money. Some of it has gone to Algerian accounts, according to a source in contact with the banking network that is said to be conducting the transactions.

Today 8:23 AM Clashes Break Out Near Gaddafi Compound, Tanks Firing

Heavy clashes have broken out near Moammar Gadhafi's compound in the Libyan capital.

Rebel spokesman Mohammed Abdel-Rahman says that tanks emerged from the complex, known as Bab al-Aziziya, early Monday and began firing.

An Associated Press reporter at the nearby Rixos Hotel where foreign journalists are staying could hear gunfire and loud explosions that have been going on for more than 30 minutes.

Live Blog on The Guardian and BBC and Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya

Mystery over Libyan rebel commander's death

The head of the Libyan rebels' armed forces and two of his aides were killed by gunmen on Thursday, creating a power vacuum at the top of the opposition military hierarchy and raising questions about who was responsible.

Abdel Fattah Younes was killed after being summoned to the de facto rebel capital of Benghazi to appear before a judicial inquiry, opposition leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil announced at a press conference late on Thursday night.

Rebel security reportedly arrived at Younes's operations room near the rebels' eastern front and arrested him and his aides early on Thursday.

Security officials said at the time that Younes was to be questioned about possible ties to Muammar Gaddafi's regime. Younes was Gaddafi's interior minister before defecting to the rebels early in the uprising, which began in February. Jalil said that Younes had been summoned for questioning regarding "a military matter". He said Younes and his two aides, a colonel and a major, were shot before they arrived for questioning.

More on Al Jazeera and BBC

Muammar Gaddafi subject to ICC arrest warrant

The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi, accusing him of crimes against humanity. The court had grounds to believe he had ordered attacks on civilians during Libya's four-month uprising, it said.

The Hague-based court also issued warrants for two of Col Gaddafi's top aides - his son Saif al-Islam and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Sanussi. Thousands of people are believed to have been killed in the conflict.

More on BBC News

Cynthia McKinney from Tripoli

Deadly 'day of rage' in Libya

Libyan protesters seeking to oust longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi have defied a crackdown and taken to the streets on what activists have dubbed a "day of rage". There are reports that more than a dozen demonstrators have been killed in clashes with pro-government groups.

Opponents of Gaddafi, communicating anonymously online or working in exile, urged people to protest on Thursday to try to emulate popular uprisings which unseated long-serving rulers in neighbouring Tunisia and Egypt. "Today the Libyans broke the barrier or fear, it is a new dawn,'' Faiz Jibril, an opposition leader in exile, said.

Abdullah, an eyewitness in the country's second largest city of Benghazi, who spoke to Al Jazeera, said that he saw six unarmed protesters shot dead by police on Thursday.

Opposition website Libya Al-Youm (cache) said four protesters were killed by snipers from the Internal Security Forces in the eastern city of al-Baida, which had protests on Wednesday and Thursday, AP news agency reported.

Al Jazeera

Video footage posted on YouTube shows protesters in the city of Tubruq tearing down a 'Green Book' monument on Thursday. The Green Book is a book written by Gaddafi, which outlines his political views.