UK apologises to Belhaj
May is weak: European commissioner
BRITAIN, May 10, (Agencies): Britain on Thursday apologised for contributing to the ill treatment of former Islamist fighter turned politician Abdel Hakim Belhaj, who was kidnapped in Thailand in 2004, handed over to Libya and tortured.
“The UK government’s actions contributed to your detention, rendition and suffering,” Prime Minister Theresa May said in a letter to Belhaj and his wife Fatima Boudchar, which was read out in parliament by Attorney General Jeremy Wright.
“On behalf of Her Majesty’s government, I apologise to you unreservedly,” the letter read.
Belhaj, who became Tripoli’s military commander after Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was ousted in the 2011 revolution, claimed British complicity in their capture by the CIA and subsequent torture by his regime.
The British government accepted the couple “were subjected to a harrowing ordeal which caused them significant distress”, and said that it had reached “a full and final settlement” with them both.
Boudchar will receive £500,000 (570,000 euros, $670,000) compensation, but Belhaj did not seek any financial settlement, only an apology.
Boudchar was four-and-a-half months pregnant when she was kidnapped, telling the Guardian that she had been taped to a stretcher for the 17-hour flight to Tripoli.
She was released shortly before giving birth. Belhaj was held for more than six years and said he was subjected to torture.
“Your accounts were moving and what happened to you is deeply troubling,” wrote May.
“The UK government believes your account, neither of you should have been treated in this way”.
The prime minister added that “we should have understood sooner the unacceptable practices of some of our international partners. We sincerely regret our failures.” Belhaj initially said he was taking action against MI6’s former counterterrorism chief Mark Allen.
Papers found after Kadhafi’s ouster showed the British official had told the Libyan government that it was “the least the UK could do” to help capture Belhaj.
He also sued ex-foreign secretary Jack Straw, but dropped both of the cases as he mediated a “full and final settlement” with the government.
Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, has met the head of Greece’s Orthodox Christian Church, Archbishop Hieronymos, during an official visit to Athens.
Charles has long been interested in Orthodox Christianity, privately visiting monasteries in Romania and Greece — where his paternal great-grandfather reigned and his father, Prince Philip, was born.
Also Thursday, the Prince of Wales and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, had a brief walk through central Athens, chatting with passers-by as they went to visit a small Byzantine-era church.
Charles was also due to board a historic Greek warship now serving as a floating museum, the Georgios Averof.
The royal couple arrived in Greece for a three-day visit Wednesday, meeting the country’s prime minister and president. They will visit the island of Crete Friday.
The EU’s budget commissioner Gunther Oettinger voiced concerns Wednesday that negotiations on Brexit would stay deadlocked, as he called British PM Theresa May “weak” while mocking her foreign minister.
“Madame May is weak and Boris Johnson has the same hairdo as Trump. That says everything,” the German commissioner said during a discussion with students at a European school in Karlsruhe, according to remarks carried by national news agency DPA.
“We can only hope that sensible citizens will put Madame May on the path to a clever Brexit,” said Oettinger.
British politicians are struggling to overcome divisions on Brexit, with the House of Lords on Tuesday handing the government fresh legislative defeats on the issue, hours after Johnson dismissed as “crazy” one of May’s proposals for future EU customs arrangements.
Businesses in Britain that turn a blind eye to worker abuses and modern slavery within their supply chains should be named and shamed and hit with tougher punishments, from heavy fines to prosecutions, a state-backed labor watchdog said on Wednesday.
Anti-slavery enforcers must use policestyle powers granted last year to tackle all forms of workplace exploitation, and the government should chase more prosecutions of unscrupulous employers, said the Director of Labor Market Enforcement (LME).
Big brands should be forced to take joint responsibility for abuses in their supply chains, said David Metcalf, who was appointed last year to oversee agencies that enforce employment rights as part of a crackdown on workplace exploitation.
“Failure to correct the infringements within a given timeframe ... could result in public naming of both the brand name and supplier,” he said in a report on the LME’s strategy.
Britain’s business ministry said it would not accept any illegal behavior from bosses who exploit their workers. “We are already cracking down on irresponsible company directors and boosting protections for workers,” Britain’s business minister Andrew Griffiths said in a statement.
Regarded as a global leader in the drive to end slavery, Britain passed the Modern Slavery Act in 2015 to crack down on traffickers, force businesses to check their supply chains for forced labor, and protect people at risk of being enslaved.