• published: 08 Feb 2013
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Exclusive: what was the role of MI6 and Tony Blair's government in the kidnap of Abdul-Hakim Belhaj from Malaysia in March 2004, which delivered him into the hands of Colonel Gaddafi's torturers? His cell is a living coffin. Stretch your hands out and your fingers trail against both of the side walls. Turn your body around and your fingers are tantalisingly close to the back wall and the metal cell door, writes Kevin Toolis. In the heat of the Libyan summer the concrete walls baked like a furnace radiating heat, 130F degrees plus, into the airless cell. In the winter, in freezing temperatures, rain poured through the open roof grille soaking the two filthy blankets given as a bed. And then there was the solitude. For one year Abdel Hakim Belhaj was entombed as the only prisoner in the solitary confinement block deep inside the Gaddafi regime's notorious Abu Salim prison. His only human contact was the twice-daily visit by the guard to drop off food. But outside the cell was worse. "When I was taken out of the cell for interrogations I was treated very violently. I was blindfolded and handcuffed with my hands tied behind my back. I was often beaten in these small corridors. It depended on the shifts of the guards. "Some took pleasure in treating us badly or if they were pressurising us to say something they want. Sometimes they would make me stand hooded for long hours in the blazing sun and I would long to be back in this cell despite knowing how hard it was just to be here. It was my sanctuary. "In the cell I used to spend the time reading the Koran and waiting, waiting for the hope that didn't go away, that God Almighty will take away this suffering. I thank God I survived to take back my freedom." Abdul-Hakim Belhaj's crime is clear. As the exiled leader of the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) Belhaj was a sworn enemy of the Libyan tyrant Muammar al-Gaddafi. Mr Belhaj therefore deserved to die. So along with the routine beatings, torture and brutal interrogations during his five years of imprisonment, Mr Belhaj was also formally sentenced to death after a 15-minute court hearing. What is less clear, though, is the role of MI6, and Tony Blair's government, with the CIA's help, in the kidnap of Mr Belhaj and his pregnant wife Fatima Boucher from Malaysia in March 2004 which delivered them into the hands of Gaddafi's torturers. Through his English lawyers Leigh Day & Co, Mr Belhaj is now suing former Labour foreign secretary Jack Straw, the then deputy head of MI6 Sir Mark Allen, MI6, MI5, the Foreign Office and Home Office for their alleged complicity in his torture. For 10 years British politicians like Jack Straw, Gordon Brown and David Miliband have flatly denied that the British state was complicit in torture during the war on terror. But new evidence in Mr Belhaj's case appears to strongly challenge those claims. In one of Gaddafi's luxurious offices, Mr Belhaj showed Channel 4 News piles of Libyan copies of top secret MI6 documents detailing phone numbers, passport numbers and the postal codes of Libyan opponents of Gaddafi living in Manchester as proof of the depth of collaboration between MI6 and the Gaddafi regime. Other documents in English listed the names and whereabouts of Libyan exiles in Iran and showed MI6 trading information gathered in Teheran with the Libyan regime. Most importantly of all, the files also contained a crucial memorandum of understanding, dating from October 2002, detailing a two-day meeting in Libya between Gaddafi's external intelligence agency and two senior heads of MI6 and one from MI5 outlining joint plans for "intelligence exchange, counter terrorism and mutual co-operation". Channel 4 News is not naming the British officials but they are clearly identified on the document. Other secret files relating to Mr Belhaj's rendition were discovered by foreign journalists during the fall of Tripoli in 2011, but these new files are far more detailed, wide ranging and, crucially, come from the Libyan side of the intelligence exchange. Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favour of fair use.