£1.5m bid to silence Libyan suing UK over torture f light
A LEGAL battle to silence a Libyan dissident who claims Britain helped hand him over to Colonel Gaddafi’s torturers has cost taxpayers £1.5million.
Abdel Hakim Belhaj, 50, is willing to drop his case for a token £ 1 in compensation and an apology for the UK’s complicity in his abuse, but the Government has refused.
He says during Tony Blair’s time in office he and his pregnant wife Fatima Bouchard were kidnapped and delivered to Libya thanks to MI6 intelligence and tortured with the help of British spies.
In January the Supreme Court gave the couple permission to sue the Government over their extraordinary rendition – where suspects are flown to another country for imprisonment and interrogation.
It raises the prospect of former foreign secretary Jack Straw and ex-MI6 counter-terror chief Sir Mark Allen being hauled into the witness box to explain their role in the scandal. Mr Belhaj, an opponent of Gaddafi, was handed over to the tyrant’s henchmen in 2004 – the same month as Mr Blair struck his notorious ‘deal in the desert’ with the despot.
A court hearing could lay bare the depth to which the Blair Government was complicit in the CIA’s torture programme. A Freedom of Information request revealed the Treasury Solicitor’s department – the Government’s law office – has spent a total of £1,572,017 on internal and external legal costs in a failed attempt to keep the case out of court. Cori Crider, a lawyer at Reprieve, which represents Mr Belhaj, said: ‘The Government has wasted a staggering sum of public money – it seems no expense is too great to spare the blushes of the security services.’
Mr Belhaj, a former Islamist fighter, said: ‘I am not interested in revenge – only for the British Government or those involved in the case to admit to and apologise for what happened.’
He said he had gone through ‘a lot of pain and suffering’ and accused Mr Blair of ‘stepping all over the principles of human rights and justice’ that the UK was known for. Mr Belhaj fled Libya as a dissident in the 1990s and sought asylum through the UK.
But it is claimed MI6 agents tipped off the CIA, and Mr Belhaj and his wife were taken into Libyan custody, where he says he suffered six years in a torture dungeon. Among his claims is that Sir Mark is guilty of negligence and complicity in torture.
Lib Dem MP Alistair Carmichael said: ‘The Government could settle this case tomorrow for £1 and an apology but sorry seems again to be the hardest word to say.’
In a statement, Mr Straw said he had acted lawfully at all times and had never been complicit in unlawful rendition by other states.
A Cabinet Office spokesman said: ‘It would be inappropriate for the Government to comment on this case due to the ongoing legal proceedings.’
‘Staggering waste of public money’