04/09/2011 BBC Weekend News

New allegations that Britain was complicit in the rendition of a key

terror suspect back to Libya. The BBC is shown further documentary

evidence on the extent of links between the CIA, MI6 and the

Gaddafi regime. Opposition fighters in Libya say

talks with Gaddafi loyalists to hand over a regime stronghold have

failed. Amid a leadership race, the

Scottish Conservatives consider a call to break away from the

Westminster party. I think there is real interest in

creating a modern, progressive, centre-right party that will

broaden its appeal. The former Chancellor, Alistair Darling, talks

of a permanent air of chaos when Gordon Brown was Prime Minister.

And a win for Mo Farah in the 5,000 metres at the World Athletics

Good evening. The commander of anti-Gaddafi forces in Tripoli has

told the BBC he wants an apology from Britain and America for the

way he was transferred to a prison in Libya in 2004. Abdul Hakim

Belhaj, then a terror suspect, says he was tortured after being

arrested in Bangkok and taken to the Libyan capital in an operation

organise nielzed by the CIA and MI6 -- organised by the CIA and MI6.

Jeremy Bowen has sent this report from Tripoli.

As Libyas cell doors open, so do some of its secret files. Routine

torture in Libyan jails was no secret. But the document showed

that didn't stop Britain and America working closely with the

regime. Their main contact was Colonel Gaddafi's right-hand man,

Moussa Koussa. He defected to Britain earlier this year. In 2004,

Prime Minister Tony Blair visited Libya. By then, MI6 was working

with the CIA to send people they believed to be jihadist terrorists

to Libya's notorious jails for interrogation. After Colonel

Gaddafi came in from the cold, Libya and its prison system became

an important part of the war on terror, strong working

relationships were formed. As the pressure was tightening on the

Gaddafi regime back in March and April, senior officials would

express their astonishment about the speed with which their Western

friends had turned on them. A close advisor to Colonel Gaddafi told me

that MI6 had been working with them here in Tripoli right up until the

start of the uprising, on February 17th. The military command let me

see some of the CIA and MI6 documents but a Libyan arrested in

Bangkok in 2004 and transported to Tripoli. In one, an MI6 official

tells Moussa Koussa not to forget that the intelligence which caught

the suspected Al-Qaeda sympathiser came from Britain. A comeerical

flight... That man is Abdul Hakim Belhaj, now military commander of

Tripoli, always an anti-Gaddafi fighter, he says, but never Al-

Qaeda. He said he was tortured by the CIA and the Libyans after his

arrest. TRANSLATION: What happened to me is

illegal and it deserves an apology. Especially from people who claim to

have worked with human rights. he's about the most powerful man in

Tripoli. Mr Belhaj says that after the CIA and MI6 got him here in

March 2004, they didn't witness his torture, but interrogated him

afterwards. And Moussa Koussa told him he would die in his cell.

top people in MI6 lpts A few months earlier, on Christmas Day, they

sent Moussa Koussa an affectionate note. He is coming for Christmas

lunch today. It is a pity you cannot join us. Isn't it fair

enough that these people would have a working relationship on the

Libyan side? He was useful to them. He was useful in sending terror

suspects to Libya where he would torture them, basically, and get

the answers from them that the CIA and MI6 want. I found these

photographs of prisoners bound, battered and terrified in one of

Tripoli's jails. Britain and the US now condemn Colonel Gaddafi's

regime. But once it was useful to them.

Jeremy Bowen joins us live from Tripoli. Some of these allegations

do date back a few years. What about this revelation that MI6 had

an agent working in Tripoli right up until the start of the protest?

I think not just an agent, regular contacts according to very senior

people in the old Gaddafi regime who on a nightly basis when I used

to talk to them in March, April, May, would still be saying they

were amazed how the people they had regarded as friends had turned on

them. I think there have to be questions about the way Moussa

Koussa, when he defected, was treated as well. He may have felt

that he was coming to Britain to see friends at that particular time

and he has been allowed to go to Qatar with no kind of charges or

investigations against him. The Foreign Office in London say that

they are not going to comment on matters of intelligence. The

Government in Britain has announced that it will be looking in to the

whole question of torture and that rendition, this process of bringing

suspects back for the kind of treatment that was meted out here,

that will be part of the investigation. Tonight, opposition

fighters who have surrounded one of the regime's last strongholds say

talks with Gaddafi loyalists have failed. Hundreds of fighters in

trucks mounted with heavy weapons are stationed just outside the town

of Bani Walid. Ian Pannell spent the day with them and sent this

report. They certainly have the passion.

They now have the political power and the guns as well. But they

don't have control of all of Libya just yet. Bani Walid is a few miles

down this road and it is still under the control of Colonel

Gaddafi's men. Talks have been under way for days, to negotiate a

surrender. But this is sensitive work. Some regime loyalists fled to

Bani Walid when Tripoli fell and intelligence on the Colonel's sons

may lie here. According to my sources, Saif al-Islam left and he

was sighted there. When did Saif leave? Yesterday. Where did he go?

To the south. To Sabha? We don't know. To the south. In many ways,

Bani Walid has little strategic value. But the new national army

must consolidate its hold over all of Libya if it is to form an

effective government. They have tried to do that peacefully here.

It hasn't worked. Tonight, talks between representatives from

Colonel Gaddafi's military and the Transitional Council have collapsed.

What they said was that if the negotiations didn't work, then they

would go in by force. They are now waiting for word from Benghazi and

Tripoli as to whether or not that happens. If it does, then it means

military action in Bani Walid. This rebellion has been fired by two

things above all else - a desire for dignity and justice.

Colonel Gaddafi's troops are accused of committing grave human

rights abuses in Bani Walid and the new army wants those responsible to

be put on trial. They had hoped to do it without spilling more blood,

but that may now be impossible. Their revolution is almost complete.

But it is not quite over yet. In other news: Dominique Strauss-

Kahn has returned home to France. It comes following the collapse of

a sexual assault case against him in the United States. Mr Strauss-

Kahn and his wife faced a crowd of photographers but made no comment.

The front-runner for the leadership of the Scottish Conservatives,

Murdo Fraser, has called on his party to break away from their

Westminster colleagues. He says the creation of a new centre-right

party with a distinct Scottish identity working in partnership

with the Conservatives would attract more voters.

The idea is for the Scottish Conservative Party to change its

name and logo, make all its own decisions and rebrand as something

else. There is real interest in creating a modern, progressive,

centre-right party that will broaden its appeal and attract many

people who share our values but don't want to vote for the current

Conservative Party. There was a time when the Scottish Tories did

better. In the mid-'50s, they had a majority of votes and MPs in

Scotland, although they were called the Scottsih Unionist Party then.

By the '90s there were 11 Conservative MPs with Scottish

constituencies. In 1997, they were all wiped out. They won no seats

and have never had more than one Scottish MP at any time since.

Murdo Fraser thinks an independent Scottish party would do better in

elections to both Westminster and the Scottish Parliament. But that

doesn't mean he supports an independent Scotland. In fact, he

plans to fight the SNP's proposals to take Scotland out of the UK. But

one rival leadership candidate fears a breakaway party would play

into Nationalists' hands. This is the wrong decision. Alex Salmond

must be the happiest man in Scotland right now. The way we take

our party forward is by talking to Scotland about the things that

matter. The Education Secretary told Andrew Marr Cabinet ministers

like him will keep out of the debate. One of the things I have

learnt, as a politician from Scotland but representing an

English constituency, is that the reality of devolution means that

you should allow the party in Scotland to determine its own

destiny. David Cameron once apologised for his party's legacy

in Scotland. In Braemar with the Queen this weekend, he may be

wondering if a new tartan Tory Party would do better in future.

A 21-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the murder of

two women in Oxfordshire. Their bodies were discovered at a

property in Thame earlier this morning. The three people involved

are said to have known each other but the details of their

relationship have not been disclosed.

The former Chancellor, Alistair Darling, has spoken about how his

relationship with Gordon Brown got worse as the then Prime Minister

tried to replace him during the banking crisis in 2008. The former

Labour minister has been speaking to the BBC in his first broadcast

interview since parts of his memoirs emerged.

He was the softly-spoken Chancellor in charge of the Treasury

throughout the financial crisis. For the cameras, he and Gordon

Brown were close, but with scores to settle and a book to sell,

Alistair Darling has denounced the former Prime Minister and a regime

he describes as "brutal". He says Mr Brown's behaviour was appalling.

It was deeply unpleasant. I really don't mind and relish attacking

Tories and them attacking me, that is the stuff of politics. What is

so debilitating is when your own lot are doing it to you. Mr Darling

says his relationship with the former Prime Minister was strained

beyond breaking point and that he wanted to be more candid about the

need for cuts than Gordon Brown was apparently willing to be. At the

time, reports of feuds and fights in Gordon Brown's Government were

dismissed as tittle-tattle by Number Ten. Alistair Darling is the

latest witness to describe a poisonous atmosphere, a

dysfunctional Downing Street and serious disagreements about how to

handle the financial crisis. For Labour, this is painful history.

But Alistair Darling has advice for the present Government, too. The

Bank of England and its current governor come in for some criticism.

Alistair Darling says the bank was slow to recognise the scale of the

crisis and believes it is badly structured. The present Government

wants to make the Bank of England not just responsible for interest

rates but also for the supervision of banks where its track record is

mixed. And also it's got this overall responsibility for trying

to iron out the peaks and troughs of the economic cycle. So far,

there's been no comment from Gordon Brown. But his former Chancellor's

memoirs describe a time the Conservatives will try and focus on

in Labour's new leadership -- and Labour's new leadership will want

to forget. Now the news from the last day of

the World Athletics Championships with Sean.

The World Championships ended on a high for the British team with a

gold medal for Mo Farah in the 5,000 metres. He is the first

British man to win a world or Olympic long distance title and it

helped Great Britain to sixth in the overall medals table.

Mo Farah, Somalian born but tonight Britain's first-ever World Champion

in an event which has over the years become a victory procession

for Africans. A week on from his heartbreaking defeat in the 10,000

metres, Mo Farah celebrated with his family, redemption over half

the distance. No doubt the medal will have felt double the value.

Like last Sunday, he kicked for home with a lap to go. He said his

coach had told him to relax and run like a sprinter. And this time

there was to be no ambush on the line. His speed was too much for

the opposition. It feels awesome to have that gold medal. I came so

close before. I can't quite believe it. Defending World Triple Jump

Champion, Phillips Idowu, looked like adding a second gold for

Britain. Despite producing his best jump of the year, he had to settle

for silver behind America's Christian Taylor. I am content. I

will take the silver medal. It was a tough competition. My competitor

only needed one jump to win. He nailed that big one. Sometimes that

is the way it goes. So, at the end of these World Championships,

Britain has finished sixth in the medals table.

In fact, it's one gold more than the head coach predicted. It is an

awesome performance for British athletics. Not many times we have

done better. Very pleased. Exceeded expectations? I never do

expectations. We hit the target. That is more important to me. The

targets are set in order to get the great platform for the London Games.

Every time we hit it, we are coming closer to success in London.

have all by now become accustomed to world records involving Usain

Bolt. But he kept us waiting until the very last race in Daegu,

leading home his Jamaican quartet in the 100 metres relay in a time

of 37.04 seconds. But even that couldn't overshadow another

impressive night for Mo Farah and Britain's athletes.

Britain's team have enjoyed one of their best World Championships for

years. And thanks to Mo Farah and Phillips Idowu, they have exceeded

their medal targets. The question now is whether they can do even

better in London next year. Not to be outdone by the athletes,

there was further success for Britain's rowers on the final day

of their World Championships in Slovenia. The men's four missed out

on a medal last year but this time they won, seeing off a challenge by

Greece. It was one of seven gold medals for the team. The men's

lightweight double of Mark Hunter and jack purchase won gold as Great

Britain finished top of the medals table.

As England's footballers prepare to take on Wales at Wembley, their

manager has received the news that Jack Wilshere will miss the rest of

the qualifying campaign because of his ankle injury. He is expected to

be out of action for another two months. It is a huge blow for his

club, Arsenal. Andy Murray will play Feliciano

Lopez overnight at the US Open for a place in the fourth round. There

were distressing scenes earlier when Rafael Nadal collapsed in the

press conference after his victory over David Nalbandian in very humid

conditions. He slumped under his chair clutching his leg but ten

minutes later, the world number two appeared to have recovered and was

laughing about it revealing he had suffered from cramp.