Abdul-Hakim Belhaj torture case against UK rejected

BBC News

A tortured Libyan man's bid to sue the UK government for allegedly colluding in his rendition cannot be settled in a UK court, the High Court rules.

The judge said Abdul-Hakim Belhaj had a "well-founded claim" but pursuing it would jeopardise national security.

Mr Belhaj says that, in 2004, the UK helped the US to arrange his rendition from China to Libya, where he says he was tortured.

Mr Belhaj, speaking from Tripoli, said he would "continue to seek the truth".

His solicitor, Sapna Malik, said Mr Belhaj would try to appeal against the decision.

Mr Belhaj, the former leader of an Islamist group which fought the Gaddafi regime, says he was seized in China in 2004 as he was about to fly to London to claim asylum.

He says the UK had tipped off Libya before helping the US to arrange his rendition.

'Non-justiciable'

Mr Belhaj claims CIA agents took him from Thailand to Libya via UK-controlled Diego Garcia in 2004.

The then Labour home secretary Jack Straw has denied being aware of the rendition and allowing it to happen.

Mr Belhaj has been attempting to sue Mr Straw, former senior MI6 official Sir Mark Allen, the security services and the Foreign Office.

Mr Justice Simon said that because most of the claims related to officials in China, Malaysia, Thailand and Libya they were "non-justiciable" in the UK.

But the judge said there appeared to be a "potentially well-founded claim that the UK authorities were directly implicated in the extra-ordinary rendition of the claimants."

Mr Belhaj says he was with his pregnant wife when they were captured in China.

He said: "The judge was obviously horrified by what happened to my wife and I. But he thought the law stopped him hearing our case because it might embarrass the Americans."

"I believe that the British justice system, which I admire greatly, is better than that."

Ms Malik, at solicitors Leigh Day, said: "If this judgement stands, it will mean that anything our security services do alongside the US government is totally immune from the British legal system, even if MI6 officers arrange the rendition of a pregnant woman into the arms of Gaddafi."