Regime Docs Show Britain’s MI5 Aided Gadhafi, Betrayed Dissidents

Experts: British Spies Likely Violated Geneva Conventions, Human Rights Act

Most of the discussion of Britain’s collaboration with the Gadhafi regime has centered on MI6’s role in the capture, rendition and subsequent torture of Abdulhakim Belhaj, one of the top military leaders in the new National Transitional Council.

But today, a new cache of documents found their way into the hands of the Daily Mail showing much broader collaboration by the MI5, with the spy agency setting up Gadhafi agents with safe houses in London and participating in the intimidation of Libyan exiles in Britain.

Some of the documents say that the MI5 confronted exiles who were on bad terms with Gadhafi and threatened to deport them back to Libya after they had already been granted asylum.

Experts say that the operations were not only a violation of British criminal law, but the Geneva Conventions and the Human Rights Act, to both of which British are signatories. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair insisted he doesn’t remember authorizing such operations.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.