OnIslam.net

TRIPOLI – Classified documents unearthed at the office of Muammar Gaddafi’s former spy chief have showed close ties between the toppled Libyan regime and US and British spy agencies in the so-called war on terror and the notorious rendition practice.

"Among the files we discovered at Musa Kusa's office is a fax from the CIA dated 2004 in which the CIA informs the Libyan government that they are in a position to capture and render Belhadj," Human Rights Watch's Peter Bouckaert, who was part of the group that found the stash, told Reuters, referring to opposition leader Abdel Hakim Belhadj.

"That operation actually took place. He was captured by the CIA in Asia and put on a secret flight back to Libya where he was interrogated and tortured by the Libyan security services."

The documents were found by Human Rights Watch workers at the abandoned offices of Kusa; Libya's former spy chief and foreign minister.

The papers included hundreds of letters between the CIA, MI6 and Kusa, who is now in exile in London.

Letters from the CIA began, "Dear Moussa," and were signed informally with first names only by CIA officials.

The papers suggest the CIA abducted several suspected militants from 2002 to 2004 and handed them to Tripoli.

The current military commander for Tripoli of Libya's provisional government, Abdel Hakim Belhadj, was among those captured and sent to Libya by the CIA, the New York-based group said.

HRW also accused the CIA of condoning torture.

"It wasn't just abducting suspected Islamic militants and handing them over to the Libyan intelligence. The CIA also sent the questions they wanted Libyan intelligence to ask and, from the files, it's very clear they were present in some of the interrogations themselves," said Bouckaert.

Belhadj’s transfer shed light on the notorious practice known as rendition which tainted the image of US and UK worldwide.

Rendition is defined as the abduction and extrajudicial transfer of a person from one country to another without court approval or legal proceedings.

Since 9/11, the CIA has rendered more than 100 people from one country to another, usually with well-documented records of abuse, without legal proceedings.

In 2009, an Italian judge convicted 23 CIA agents for the kidnapping of a Muslim imam and sending him to Egypt where he was tortured.

UK Spies Too

The documents  also show that the UK's MI6 cooperated closely with the Gaddafi regime, giving them details about dissidents.

One memo, which could not be independently verified, dated 18 March 2004 and with the address "London SE1", congratulates Libya on the arrival of Belhadj.

It states "for the urgent personal attention of Musa Kusa" and is headed "following message to Musa in Tripoli from Mark in London", according to the Financial Times.

Other documents carried a request to the Libyan officials to arrange the famous 2004 meeting between then British prime minister Tony Blair and Gaddafi at a tent, according to The Independent.

"[The prime minister's office is] keen that the prime minister meet the leader in his tent," the paper quotes a memo from an MI6 agent as saying.

"I don't know why the English are fascinated by tents. The plain fact is the journalists would love it."

In another memo, also seen by The Independent, UK intelligence appeared to give Tripoli details of a Libyan dissident who had been freed from jail in Britain.

The CIA declined  to comment on the leaked documents.

"It can't come as a surprise that the Central Intelligence Agency works with foreign governments to help protect our country from terrorism and other deadly threats," CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood said.

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague also played down the revelations.

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," Hague told Sky News.