Former spook who courted Gaddafi’s spy chief

SIR Mark Allen, a pivotal player in Tony Blair’s ‘deal in the desert’ with Colonel Gaddafi, spent years courting the Libyan despot and his associates.

The veteran Arabist developed close relationships with the dictator’s playboy son Saif al-Islam and his intelligence chief Musa Kusa.

But a fax to Kusa – found in the ruins of his office after the fall of the Gaddafi regime – left Sir Mark facing a criminal investigation over the Abdul Hakim Belhadj rendition.

Sir Mark was keen to point out that British intelligence had led to the dissident’s delivery back to Libya.

Using an MI6 code name for Mr Belhadj, he wrote in March 2004: ‘I congratulate you on the safe arrival of [Belhadj]... This was the least we could do for you and for Libya to demonstrate the remarkable relationship we have built over recent years.’

Sir Mark had spent years convincing Gaddafi and his henchmen to work with the West, and held numerous meetings with Kusa, who was notorious for his human rights abuses.

The two men were even said to have met in secret in London, and Sir Mark also met Gaddafi himself.

Educated at Downside Roman Catholic private school in Somerset, he won a place at Exeter College in Oxford to study Classics, but switched to Arabic. A growing obsession with the Middle East led him to travel to Jordan, where he bought a camel and pursued an interest in falconry.

He went on to study at the Middle East Centre for Arabic Studies, known as a British ‘spy school’, and joined the Diplomatic Service in 1973, ultimately becoming MI6’s head of counter-terror.

In 2004, he missed out on the top job at the agency and quit, later taking a role as a special adviser for BP on its Libyan oil contracts, and he was knighted a year later.

The fall of Gaddafi in 2011 led to the discovery of Sir Mark’s correspondence with Kusa, and British police launched a four-year investigation.

However, the Crown Prosecution Service ruled there was insufficient evidence to bring charges. Sir Mark, now 67, has denied wrongdoing.