A Libyan military commander has begun legal actions against the British government for being complicit in his illegal rendition to Libya under the regime of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Abdul Hakim Belhadj, leading the revolutionary forces into Tripoli, was arrested by the US's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in Malaysia in 2004 over the suspicions of having links to al-Qaeda. He was then transferred to Thailand and rendered to Libya apparently, in exchange for information that Gaddafi's agents had given to them.
He asserted that the British government betrayed him when he sought asylum through the British High Commission in Malaysia in 2004.
Human Rights Watch director Peter Bouckaert found secret documents revealing UK's complicity in the rendition plot that delivered Belhadj to Tripoli, where he was tortured and imprisoned for seven years in Abu Salim prison.
Belhadj, who is now suing the UK government, has been seeking a public apology from the US and British government and admission that his group, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), only focused on ousting Gaddafi.
He will also ask the Metropolitan police to investigate MI6 officers who were involved in his rendition to Libya.
This is while that the so-called opponent of the US and Britain, settled in the Turkish-Syrian border leading a battalion of 700 men. As he has been pursuing the war policy of the western governments, Belhadj held several meetings with the Syrian opposition leaders, aiming to wage wars against the Assad government. He sent Libyan fighters to train opposition groups in Syria and even offered to provide the opposition leaders with money and weapons.
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