Documents obtained by the The Mail on Sunday showed that agents from Britain’s intelligence agency MI5 had been in a covert joint operation with Gaddafi’s spies working in Britain. The documents were unearthed from Libyan spymasters’ archives after the fall of Gaddafi.
The documents revealed that the MI5 supplied Gaddafi’s agents with intelligence, secure mobile phones, and a luxurious safe house in Knightsbridge, London.
“The documents seem to say that British agencies exposed people who had been given refuge here to the very people they had fled. This is an appalling betrayal of Britain’s obligations and traditions, apparently for reasons of realpolitik, not national security. What the documents reveal is coercion at best, and at worst blackmail,” said David Davis, senior Tory MP.
The documents also revealed that Gaddafi’s agents were told that their targets could be threatened with deportation to Libya if they refused to cooperate.
Legal experts have maintained that the documents show Britain violated the Geneva Conventions on refugees, the Human Rights Act, and ordinary criminal law.
A senior former intelligence officer said former Prime Minister Tony Blair had most probably been involved in the operations.
ISH/MF/HE