CIA and MI6 helped Gaddafi on dissidents: Human Rights Watch (Reuters)

TRIPOLI (Reuters) ? Documents found in the abandoned Tripoli office of Muammar Gaddafi's intelligence chief indicate the U.S. and British spy agencies helped the fallen strongman persecute Libyan dissidents, Human Rights Watch said on Saturday.

The documents were uncovered by campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW)in the abandoned offices of Libya's former spy chief and foreign minister, Moussa Koussa.

The group said it uncovered hundreds of letters between the CIA, MI6 and Koussa, who is now in exile in London. Letters from the CIA began, "Dear Moussa" and were signed informally with first names only by CIA officials, HRW said.

The current military commander for Tripoli of Libya's provisional government, Abdel Hakim Belhadj, was among those captured and sent to Libya by the CIA, according to HRW.

"Among the files we discovered at Moussa Koussa's office is a fax from the CIA dated 2004 in which the CIA informs the Libyan government that they are in a position to capture and render Belhadj," HRW's Peter Bouckaert, who was part of the group that found the stash, told Reuters.

"That operation actually took place. He was captured by the CIA in Asia and put on a secret flight back to Libya where he was interrogated and tortured by the Libyan security services."

HANDED OVER FOR TORTURE

Belhadj has claimed that he was tortured by CIA agents before being transferred to Libya, where he says he was then tortured at Tripoli's notorious Abu Salim prison.

The CIA has not commented directly on the HRW report. A British government spokesman told Reuters that Britain did "not comment on intelligence matters."

Western intelligence services began cooperating with Libya after Gaddafi abandoned his program to build unconventional weapons in 2004. But the files show his cooperation with the CIA and MI6 may have been more extensive than previously thought, analysts say.

The depth of the ties could anger NTC officials -- many of whom are long-term opponents of Gaddafi who are now responsible for charting a new path for Libya's foreign relations.

Bouckaert showed Reuters photos of several documents on his computer and also photos of letters he said were from the CIA to Koussa and were signed, "Steve." He also displayed photographs he said were of letters from MI6 giving Libyan intelligence information on Libyan dissidents in Britain.

"Our concern is that when these people were handed over to the Libyan security they were tortured and the CIA knew what would happen when they sent people like Abdel Hakim into the hands of the Libyan security services," Bouckaert said.

More recent documents showed that after the war broke out six months ago, Libya reached out to a former rebel group in the breakaway Somali state of Puntland, the Somali Salvation Front, asking them to send 10,000 fighters to Tripoli to help defend Gaddafi.

(Writing by Barry Malone; Editing by Alastair Macdonald and Caroline Drees)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/africa/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110903/wl_nm/us_libya_usa_cia

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