UK Edition
Libyan terror suspect put in charge of guarding David Cameron on 2011 Tripoli visit
A Libyan terror suspect imprisoned in the UK was put in charge of guarding David Cameron on an official visit to Tripoli in 2011, it emerged last night.
The disclosure is potentially embarrassing for British security services who would have vetted Mr Cameron’s protection detail on the trip.
The intelligence agencies are already under criticism for failing to spot the danger posed by Salman Abedi, the son of a Libyan Islamist, who carried out the Manchester Arena suicide bombing.
Abedi had fought in the Libyan civil war that ousted Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and travelled to the country repeatedly where he is thought to have received terrorist training.
According to sources, the unnamed Libyan national was put in charge of the country’s close protection team following the overthrow of Gaddafi in 2011.
When Mr Cameron, who was then prime minister, visited Tripoli along with French president Nicolas Sarkozy in September 2011, the security was provided by the Libyan national, previously regarded as a terror suspect in the UK.
The man’s identity was protected by the British legal system. He was given the identifying letter ‘M’ in court cases after being detained in Belmarsh jail as a suspected terrorist in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the US in 2001.
He was released on appeal in March 2003 and then, it is understood, placed on a control order that restricted his movements. ‘M’ was a prominent leader in the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), a banned terror organisation of which Abedi’s father was also a prominent supporter.
LIFG was accused of strong links to al-Qaeda and some members had trained in Afghanistan was linked to terror groups in Afghanistan.
Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee and Islamist human rights activist, said in an interview with an Arab television channel: “One man I know who’d been on a control order went on to become a head of security in Tripoli and was responsible, bizarrely, for the safety of David Cameron and Nicolas Sarkozy when they visited Libya in 2011.”
The Telegraph has been told the man he referred to is ‘Detainee M’. This newspaper also understands that ‘M’ was placed in charge of Hillary Clinton’s local security detail during a trip by the then US Secretary of State to Libya a month later in October 2011.
The Government had claimed M was part of an extremist Islamic movement in Libya, had fought in Afghanistan and had transferred money to a man suspected of links to al-Qaeda. ‘M’ admitted being a member of LIFG, but said the organisation’s only interest was opposing Colonel Gaddafi’s regime.
‘M’ appealed against his detention and claims of his links to al-Qaeda in a series of court cases in 2003 and 2004. After a three-day hearing in 2004, an appeal court ruled that the government had not established a reasonable suspicion that M was a “suspected international terrorist,” and the evidence on which the security services had based their assessment was “wholly unreliable and should not have been used to justify detention.”
Amnesty International hailed the decision to release ‘M’.
Serious questions over Britain’s dealings with LIFG emerged following the Manchester Arena suicide attack in which 22 people were murdered by Abedi. Abedi, 22, was born in Manchester, to Libyan parents who lived there in exile in fear of Gaddafi’s regime.
LIFG members were first welcomed in the UK as a bulwark against Gaddafi in the 1980s and 1990s. But following the restoration of diplomatic ties between Libya and the UK in 1999 and the 9/11 attacks on the US in 2001, Britain began targeting LIFG activists. With Gaddafi’s regime tottering, the LIFG was again encouraged to return to Libya to take up the fight against the dictator, toppling him in 2011.