British politicians did know about CIA torture f lights

But Straw and spy chief won’t be charged

JACK Straw was last night mired deeper in the scandal of Britain’s involvement in the torture and kidnap of Libyan dissidents.

Prosecutors controversially ruled that no one would stand trial over claims that MI6 helped send two men back into the clutches of Colonel Gaddafi in 2004.

But for the first time, it was officially confirmed that politicians knew the UK was embroiled in the CIA’s programme of torture flights. In a statement, the Crown Prosecution Service said there was supporting evidence that an unnamed suspect – known to be ex-MI6 counter-terror chief Sir Mark Allen – had been ‘in communication’ with the Libyan regime over the renditions.

It added that he had also ‘sought political authority’ for some actions, although nothing was ever written down. MI6 answers to whoever is Foreign Secretary, which at the time was Mr Straw.

It raises fresh troubling questions about the depth to which the Blair Government was complicit in the abuse of terror suspects and the scale to which UK involvement has been covered up.

Mr Straw and Sir Mark have been repeatedly accused of helping send Gaddafi’s opponents to unlawful secret detention in Libya, where they were mistreated.

But after a painstaking four-year police investigation into claims of British complicity in the CIA’s torture programme, nobody will stand in the dock. Despite being presented with more than 28,000 pages of evidence by police, the CPS said it was ‘not sufficient’ to press criminal charges.

Representatives of dissidents Abdul Hakim Belhadj and Sami al-Saadi, who were kidnapped along with their families, reacted with anger last night. Their lawyers said prosecutors’ attitude had been to ‘see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil’ and claimed the families had been ‘denied justice’.

Speaking to the Mail, Mr Belhadj – who was rendered with his pregnant wife – said he was ‘disappointed’ that the people responsible would not be prosecuted.

He accused the authorities of ‘crushing justice’ to avoid the embarrassment of powerful Establishment figures being hauled into the dock. ‘I know pressure and influence was put on the court for my case to go no further because the evidence pointed at Jack Straw and Mark Allen,’ he said.

‘I believed in British justice. I believed in your justice for all, that people would be equal and not divided between Christian and Muslim, a Mr Belhadj or a Mr Jones; British or foreign. It should help all humanity. But political influence and interference crushed this justice. This is not about justice or truth, it is about politics and protecting the powerful.

‘It is a cover up. In the eyes of the world British justice has suffered.’ Mr Belhadj and Mr al-Saadi were handed over to Gaddafi’s henchmen in the same year as Tony Blair struck his notorious ‘deal in the desert’ with the Libyan despot.

Crucial papers relating to their cases first came to light by chance when a cache of documents were discovered in the bombed-out ruins of the tyrant’s spy HQ during the 2011 Libyan uprising.

Sir Mark Allen, MI6’s anti-terror chief at the time, wrote to his Libyan counterpart that delivering the ‘air cargo’ was ‘the least we could do for you’.

The Metropolitan Police said its investigation, named Operation Lydd, had been ‘thorough and penetrating’. In a statement, the CPS said an unnamed public official – known to be Sir Mark – was investigated for aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring any offence of torture, and misconduct in public office.

Both Mr Straw, questioned as a witness, and Sir Mark have repeatedly denied any knowledge of socalled extraordinary rendition – in which suspects are flown from one country to another for imprisonment and interrogation, possibly using torture.

But Cori Crider, a lawyer for the two families at human rights group Reprieve, said the CPS findings were ‘official acknowledgement that British officials were involved in this rendition’.

She said: ‘Sir Mark Allen took credit, in writing, for the operation. Jack Straw, we are told, signed it off. ‘It is hard to escape the conclusion that this decision has a great deal to do with political power and very little to do with the rule of law.’

Parliament’s intelligence and security committee will now look at the case as part of a wider inquiry.

‘Justice has been crushed’