British ‘apology to torture victim’

MINISTERS are expected to apologise today for Britain’s role in the torture and kidnapping of a Libyan dissident.

Sources said the Government had reached a settlement with Abdel Hakim Belhaj, 52, who claimed he and his pregnant wife were captured and taken to Libya thanks to MI6 intelligence in 2004.

Mr Belhaj says he then suffered six years of abuse in Colonel Gaddafi’s torture dungeons and was interrogated by British spies. His wife Fatima Boudchar was held for four months.

Attorney General Jeremy Wright will make a statement in Parliament as part of what insiders said was a settlement of Mr Belhaj’s legal battle to expose the UK’s role in his rendition – when suspects are flown abroad for interrogation.

In January 2017 the Supreme Court gave the couple permission to sue the Government. It raised the prospect of former foreign secretary Jack Straw and MI6 counter-terror chief Sir Mark Allen being hauled into the witness box to explain their role in the scandal.