Econintersect: The U.S. sent prisoners to Tripoli for “rendition” which basically means torture and brutal interrogation. The UK helped draft speeches for Gaddafi to defend it against charges it supported terrorism. The UK reported back to Gaddafi on the activities of the dictator’s exiled opponents in the UK. Both the U.S. and UK worked behind the scenes on behalf of Libya in negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency. All this has come to light as previously secret files have been uncovered in Tripoli following the fall of the Libyan capital to the revolutionaries. (Photo of a midievil torture device for crushing joints such as knees and elbows.)From The Independent:
Secret files have been unearthed by The Independent in Tripoli that reveal the astonishingly close links that existed between British and American governments and Muammar Gaddafi.
The documents chart how prisoners were offered to the Libyans for brutal interrogation by the Tripoli regime under the highly controversial “rendition” programme, and also how details of exiled opponents of the Libyan dictator in the UK were passed on to the regime by MI6.
In spite of the close collaboration of both the U.S. and the UK with Gaddafi, the two countries were reluctant to share information with each other. While MI6 (UK’s intelligence service) personnel exchanged personal messages and gifts along with information, MI6 was unwilling to share information with the U.S. CIA. From The Independent:
With the efforts they had expended in cultivating their contacts with the regime, the British were unwilling, at times, to share their “Libya connection” with the closet ally, the US. In a letter to his Libyan intelligence counterpart, an MI6 officer described how he refused to pass on the identity of an agent to Washington.
The documents, many of them incendiary in their implications, were found at the private offices of Moussa Koussa, Col Gaddafi’s right hand man, and regime security chief, who defected to Britain in the days following the February revolution.
Source: The Independent (via OpEdNews.com)
Hat tip to Roger Erickson.
