Investigating an alleged double standard over two prominent Libyans accused of crimes against humanity.<\/i><\/p>\n
There\u2019s a spot of skulduggery going on in the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague. Not to put too fine a point upon it, a lot of questions are being asked about why the worshipful judges have, at least publicly, demanded a trial in Europe for Saif el-Islam al-Gaddafi \u2013 son of the late Muammar \u2013 but have blithely accepted that the dictator\u2019s ruthless security boss, Abdullah al-Senussi, should be tried in the militia-haunted chaos of Libya.<\/p>\n
Was this because the court didn\u2019t want to upset Libya\u2019s anarchic authorities by insisting that it try both men at The Hague? Or is there an ulterior, far more sinister purpose: to prevent Senussi blurting out details in The Hague of his cosy relationship with Western security services when he was handling relations between Gaddafi, the CIA and MI6?<\/p>\n
Ben Emmerson, who is Senussi\u2019s UK counsel \u2013 and, by chance, the UN\u2019s special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights \u2013 has described this month\u2019s pre-trial decision by the International Court to refuse to try Senussi in The Hague as \u201cshocking and inexplicable\u201d because there is \u201coverwhelming evidence\u2026 that the Libyan justice system is in a state of total collapse and that it is incapable of conducting fair trials\u201d.<\/p>\n
While making no assumptions about the reasons for the pre-trial hearing\u2019s decision, Mr Emmerson told The Independent<\/em> that when lawyers for Senussi demanded to know if MI6 operatives had interrogated him during his stay in Mauretania \u2013 and before his illegal rendition to Libya \u2013 Foreign Secretary William Hague declined to reply. Senussi was deported to Libya, according to several Libyan parliamentarians, after the Mauretanians received a bribe of $200m; the state should have handed him over to The Hague tribunal. And since Senussi has been held in Tripoli, Mr Emmerson and the defendant\u2019s other lawyers have been refused permission to see him.<\/p>\n Senussi\u2019s 20-year-old daughter, Anoud, has described to The Independent<\/em> how she saw her father in prison in Libya \u201capparently beaten on the eyes and nose, very weak and weighing less than 35 kilos\u201d. After arriving in Libya in late 2012, Ms Senussi was imprisoned on charges of using a false passport, but on her release last month, she was kidnapped on her way to the airport \u201cfor her own protection\u201d by armed men. Freed unharmed later in the same week, she said she was not sure who had abducted her \u2013 but reports suggested one group of Libyan policemen had kidnapped her from other Libyan security men.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I saw my father, I was not allowed to be alone with him and I couldn\u2019t talk to him out of earshot,\u201d she said. \u201cHe had been threatened he would be hurt if he spoke about his treatment. There will not be a safe court for my father in Libya with the present government \u2013 which is powerless to do anything.\u201d Ms Senussi is now living in Cairo.<\/p>\n No one doubts that Senussi is a man who holds many secrets \u2013 nor that he had a reputation as one of Muammar Gaddafi\u2019s fiercest and most loyal henchmen. He is wanted for crimes against humanity, and there is no doubt that the torture of Libyan exiles \u2013 after their rendition to Libya with the help of MI6 and other Western security agencies after Tony Blair\u2019s \u201cdeal in the desert\u201d with Gaddafi \u2013 fell under his remit. Senussi was, in effect, the receiving end of the renditions and of the information about Libyan exiles furnished by the West to Gaddafi.<\/p>\n Human rights activists regard Senussi as the black box recorder of the secret liaison between MI6, the CIA and Gaddafi\u2019s security regime. And the longer Senussi remains imprisoned and incommunicado in Libya, banned from meeting his international lawyers, unable to speak freely even to his own daughter and liable to face a fraudulent Libyan \u201ctrial\u201d \u2013 always supposing it takes place \u2013 the secrets of MI6 and the CIA are likely to remain safe. An open trial at The Hague could reveal the full and scandalous relationship between Gaddafi\u2019s thugs and British and American intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n Ben Emmerson is outraged at Senussi\u2019s predicament: \u201cAll international monitors have found evidence of systematic torture, abduction and even killings inside Libyan jails and\u2026 the Libyan Prime Minister himself was abducted by armed militias,\u201d Mr Emmerson said in Cairo after meeting Anoud earlier this month. Even Libya\u2019s own foreign minister said about this incident that \u2018in the absence of a functional, strong and humane criminal justice system in Libya, these things could happen any time\u2019. The Prime Minister confessed that Libya \u2018is not a failing state\u2026 the state of Libya doesn\u2019t exist yet\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr Emmerson remarked that a photograph of Senussi taken at his last Libyan court appearance on 3 October \u2013 eight days\u2019 before the ICC refused to try him at The Hague \u2013 showed him to have lost \u201ca significant amount of weight and his face appeared bruised.\u201d<\/p>\n He had been detained for 14 months in Libya \u201cwithout access to any lawyer despite his repeated requests to see a lawyer\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cBy any standards, this is an appalling and totally unacceptable violation of fundamental due process,\u201d said Mr Emmerson. \u201cWe, the ICC defence team, have been prevented by the Libyan authorities from having any contact with Mr Senussi. It is astonishing that Libya has simply refused to allow us, as Mr Senussi\u2019s defence lawyers, to consult in any way with our client.\u201d<\/p>\n The ICC had ruled that Libya was \u201cnot fit to try Saif Gaddafi\u201d, said Mr Emmerson. \u201cThe same standard must equally apply to Mr Senussi who is charged in the same case with Saif Gaddafi in Libya.\u201d<\/p>\n Human rights groups suspect that the ICC, anxious to maintain its prestige after criticism from African states that it is concentrating only on African defendants, is also fearful that if it appeals to the UN Security Council \u2013 of which the US is a voting member \u2013 to have Senussi\u2019s trial held in The Hague, it may be rebuffed.<\/p>\n A notice of appeal has been lodged by Mr Emmerson and his colleagues at The Hague to prevent domestic proceedings continuing in Libya.<\/p>\n Senussi is widely believed by Libyans to have been responsible for the 1996 massacre of more than a thousand prisoners at the Abu Salim jail, and he has been convicted in absentia in France for his alleged role in the 1989 bombing of a French UTA passenger airliner in which 170 people were killed.<\/p>\n Senussi married the sister of Gaddafi\u2019s wife. During the 2011 insurrection in which Gaddafi was himself murdered by rebels, Senussi was blamed for the deaths of regime opponents in Benghazi.<\/p>\n ________________________<\/p>\n Robert Fisk, based in Beirut, is a multiple award-winning journalist on the Middle East and a <\/i>correspondent for <\/i>The Independent, a UK newspaper.\u00a0 He is the author of many books on the region, including The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East<\/a>.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n