- Startling revelations by French intelligence experts
back David Shayler's alleged 'fantasy'about Gadaffi plot...
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- British intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda
cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi in 1996
and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.
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- The latest claims of MI6 involvement with Libya's fearsome
Islamic Fighting Group, which is connected to one of bin Laden's trusted
lieutenants, will be embarrassing to the Government, which described similar
claims by renegade MI5 officer David Shayler as 'pure fantasy'.
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- The allegations have emerged in the book Forbidden Truth
, published in America by two French intelligence experts who reveal that
the first Interpol arrest warrant for bin Laden was issued by Libya in
March 1998.
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- According to journalist Guillaume Dasquié and
Jean-Charles Brisard, an adviser to French President Jacques Chirac, British
and US intelligence agencies buried the fact that the arrest warrant had
come from Libya and played down the threat. Five months after the warrant
was issued, al-Qaeda killed more than 200 people in the truck bombings
of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
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- The arrest warrant was issued in connection with the
murder in March 1994 of two German anti-terrorism agents, Silvan and Vera
Becker, who were in charge of missions in Africa. According to the book,
the resistance of Western intelligence agencies to the Libyan concerns
can be explained by MI6's involvement with the al-Qaeda coup plot.
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- The Libyan al-Qaeda cell included Anas al-Liby, who remains
on the US government's most wanted list with a reward of $25 million for
his capture. He is wanted for his involvement in the African embassy bombings.
Al-Liby was with bin Laden in Sudan before the al-Qaeda leader returned
to Afghanistan in 1996.
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- Astonishingly, despite suspicions that he was a high-level
al-Qaeda operative, al-Liby was given political asylum in Britain and lived
in Manchester until May of 2000 when he eluded a police raid on his house
and fled abroad. The raid discovered a 180-page al-Qaeda 'manual for jihad'
containing instructions for terrorist attacks.
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- The Observer has been restrained from printing details
of the allegations during the course of the trial of David Shayler, who
was last week sentenced to six months in prison for disclosing documents
obtained during his time as an MI5 officer. He was not allowed to argue
that he made the revelations in the public interest.
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- During his closing speech last week, Shayler repeated
claims that he was gagged from talking about 'a crime so heinous' that
he had no choice but to go to the press with his story. The 'crime' was
the alleged MI6 involvement in the plot to assassinate Gadaffi, hatched
in late 1995.
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- Shayler claims he was first briefed about the plot during
formal meetings with colleagues from the foreign intelligence service MI6
when he was working on MI5's Libya desk in the mid-Nineties.
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- The Observer can today reveal that the MI6 officers involved
in the alleged plot were Richard Bartlett, who has previously only been
known under the codename PT16 and had overall responsibility for the operation;
and David Watson, codename PT16B. As Shayler's opposite number in MI6,
Watson was responsible for running a Libyan agent, 'Tunworth', who was
was providing information from within the cell. According to Shayler, MI6
passed £100,000 to the al-Qaeda plotters.
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- The assassination attempt on Gadaffi was planned for
early 1996 in the Libyan coastal city of Sirte. It is thought that an operation
by the Islamic Fighting Group in the city was foiled in March 1996 and
in the gun battle that followed several militants were killed. In 1998,
the Libyans released TV footage of a 1996 grenade attack on Gadaffi that
they claimed had been carried out by a British agent.
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- Shayler, who conducted his own defence in the trial,
intended to call Bartlett and Watson as witnesses, but was prevented from
doing so by the narrow focus of the court case.
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- During the Shayler trial, Home Secretary David Blunkett
and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw signed Public Interest Immunity certificates
to protect national security. Reporters were not able to report allegations
about the Gadaffi plot during the course of the trial.
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- These restrictions have led to a row between the Attorney
General and the so-called D-Notice Committee, which advises the press on
national security issues.
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- The committee, officially known as the Defence, Press
and Broadcasting Advisory Committee, has objected to demands by the prosecution
to apply the Official Secrets Act retrospectively to cover information
already pub lished or broadcast as a result of Shayler's disclosures. Members
of the committee, who include senior national newspaper executives, are
said to be horrified at the unprecedented attempt to censor the media during
the trial.
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- Shayler claims Watson later boasted that there had been
MI6 involvement in the Libyan operation. Shayler was also planning to call
a witness to the conversation in which the MI6 man claimed British intelligence
had been involved in the coup attempt.
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- According to Shayler, the woman, an Arabic translator
at MI5, was also shocked by Watson's admission that money had been paid
to the plotters.
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- Despite the James Bond myth, MI6 does not have a licence
to kill and must gain direct authorisation from the Foreign Secretary for
highly sensitive operations. Malcolm Rifkind, the Conservative Foreign
Secretary at the time, has repeatedly said he gave no such authorisation.
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- It is believed Watson and Bartlett have been relocated
and given new identities as a result of Shayler's revelations. MI6 is now
said to be resigned to their names being made public and it is believed
to have put further measures in place to ensure their safety.
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- A top-secret MI6 document leaked on the internet two
years ago confirmed British intelligence knew of a plot in 1995, which
involved five colonels, Libyan students and 'Libya veterans who served
in Afghanistan'.
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- Ashur Shamis, a Libyan expert on radical Islam said:
'There was a rise in the activities of the Islamic Fighting Group from
1995, but many in Libya would be shocked if MI6 was involved.'
- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2002
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