Brits want to have secret court hearing on Libyan's rendition

[Magda Hassan]

High court is urged to scrap Libyan's claim that UK spies aided torture

MI5 and MI6 say dissident's legal action could jeopardise intelligence operations

• Richard Norton-Taylor
  
  
• The Guardian, Tuesday 22 October 2013 09.03 AEST
  

Abdel Hakim Belhaj claims British agents were involved in his abduction. Photograph: Francois Mori/AP

A case brought by a leading Libyan dissident who accuses MI6, MI5 and the former foreign secretary, Jack Straw, of complicity in the abduction that led to his torture must be struck out because any unlawful act took place in a foreign country and not in the UK, government lawyers told the high court on Monday.
"The core of the claims relate to alleged acts of foreign states outside this country," Rory Phillips QC said, referring to evidence that Abdul Hakim Belhaj and his Moroccan wife, Fatima Boudchar, were seized in China in 2004, then deported to Malaysia and subsequently flown to Thailand, ostensibly en route to London, where they were to seek asylum.
At Bangkok, they were put on a flight to Tripoli, where they were jailed and tortured.
The abduction of Belhaj and his wife with the help of MI6 came to light when documents were found in Tripoli after Muammar Gaddafi's fall two years ago. They revealed that MI6's Sir Mark Allen congratulated the Libyan intelligence chief Moussa Koussa on the safe arrival of the "air cargo", and noted that "the intelligence [on Belhaj] was British".
Neither of the claimants had any connection with the UK in a chain of events involving officials of "other sovereign countries", Phillips claimed on Monday.
From the witness box, Laurie Bristow, director for national security at the Foreign Office, claimed that if the case went ahead, there was a danger that MI6 operations and those of foreign states would be exposed. Asked by Richard Hermer QC, for Belhaj, whether the Foreign Office ever before had demanded the exclusion of evidence relating to torture, Bristow replied : "I can't answer that question."
Asked about documents, widely available on the internet, spelling out the UK's involvement in the secret rendition of Belhaj and his wife to Libya, Bristow responded: "The issue is about whether we confirm or deny actions of the intelligence services."
The traditional policy of successive British governments is to "neither confirm nor deny" claims made by critics of MI5 and MI6. Bristow said that if Belhaj was allowed to pursue his claim for damages and for an apology, the UK's relations with the US and other countries involved would be damaged.