Lockerbie Part of a Bigger Story

November 11th Update - London Observer: MI6 'halted bid to arrest bin Laden'

The London Observer today confirmed the story I reported on last month. Shayler was imprisoned for 6 months for revealing British Intelligence's protection of bin Laden and Al-Qaeda.

"British intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi in 1996 and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice."

Full story at http://politics.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,9174,837333,00.html

On the evening of 7th October, Tony Blair ordered a D-Notice on British media reporting government officials signing court gag orders. This regards the case of former MI5 officer David Shayler, who has evidence to prove MI6 gave £100,000 to bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, arms to Iraq and had prior knowledge of several terrorist attacks on London in the 1990's. The original articles stated that top Labour MP's had signed gag orders, whereby upon mention of this evidence in court, media have to immediately leave the trial. Newspapers all over the country, including the Guardian, the London Evening Standard and the Scotsman either completely removed or amended their articles. This evidence is damning. The British government is trying to bury the story before it buries them.

I first noticed that the Guardian article I had earlier posted on my website had disappeared. Already aware that Blair may well have ordered a D-Notice to eliminate these reports, I immediately started searching on Google for some more. In Britain, a D-Notice is where the government order a gag on a particular breaking story. I came across a very similar London Evening Standard report and immediately put it on my web site. Low and behold, five minutes later the link was dead! Amazingly, I still had the article up on my screen on a different browser window. I tried to archive the page to my desktop but to no avail. I did manage to print out a copy which I have scanned and linked below.

SNIP

The original London Guardian report was entitled 'Ministers issue gag orders for MI5 trial' and was located at http://www.guardian.co.uk/shayler/article/0,2763,806009,00.html - as you will see if you click on the link, it's disappeared down the memory hole. The text I extracted from the report for my original link to it is as follows...

"Ministers issue gag orders for MI5 trial: They appear to be worried that he will make further allegations about MI5 and MI6 knowledge of a plot to assassinate the Libyan leader, Muammar Gadafy, in 1996. A book, Forbidden Truth, published this summer claims that British intelligence was in contact with "Osama bin Laden's main allies" who were opposed to Colonel Gadafy."

UPDATE - A Google cache of the Guardian article has now been posted online. Note that Google automatically cache popular web documents, the Guardian have not officially re-posted their article. View it by clicking here.

The London Evening Standard article was entitled 'Calls for secret Shayler trial' and was at http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/1488303

Before you read this, it is important to understand the issue at hand. We're talking about MI6 cooperation with bin Laden, arms to Iraq and, as reported today in the Scotsman, claims that, 'secret services ignored warnings that might have prevented bombings in the London in 1993 and 1994.' Shayler has evidence that MI5 wilfully failed to stop the bomb attack on Israel's London embassy in 1994 and the IRA's 1993 Bishopsgate bombing, which killed one person. Here it is in Shayler's own words plus the actual MI6 Gaddafi plot document - MI6 Plot to assassinate Colonel Gaddafi: Police enquiry confirms Plot is not "fantasy" - http://cryptome.org/shayler-gaddafi.htm

Analysis: Al-Qaida tried to kill Gadhafi
By Roland Flamini
Chief International Correspondent
Published 3/26/2004 7:06 PM
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WASHINGTON, March 26 (UPI) -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair was right. It was "strange" to be in Libya. Firstly because of the Arabian nightmare setting of tents, camels and security men. But also because Moammar Gadhafi's remarkable switch from leader of a rogue state with a secret nuclear weapons program to an Arab president apparently eager to cooperate with the West raises and leaves unanswered curious nagging questions.

President Bush has been quick to claim the great Libyan turnaround as one of the welcome by-products of the Iraq war. Gadhafi does not want to be the next Middle Eastern maverick to mess with the U.S. Marines, goes the Bush administration's argument. But European sources who know Gadhafi say he is less concerned about the U.S. threat than the threat from Osama bin Laden.

Libyan Foreign Minister Abdul Rahman Shalgam told British reporters with Blair Thursday that Libya had pushed Interpol in 1998 to issue an international warrant for the arrest of the Saudi-born militant leader, but Interpol failed to take action. Shalgam said Libya had done this after bin Laden had organized an attempt on Gadhafi's life because he was not a true Muslim.

Shalgam's claim was remarkable because the Libyan regime has in the past always denied the periodic reports of assassination attempts against the leader. But the purpose was to show that Gadhafi shared common cause with the United States and its allies in the fight against terrorism.

In reality, bin Laden's organization al-Qaida has tried more than once to assassinate Gadhafi, on one occasion actually wounding him in the arm and leg.

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How I was briefed on the Qadhafi plot
In late summer 1995, , at the time PT16/B in MI6, asked to meet to discuss an unusual case which he could not mention over the phone. At the subsequent meeting, PT16/B told me that:


a senior member of the Libyan had walked into the British embassy in and asked to meet the resident MI6 officer.

the Libyan had asked for funds to lead a group of Islamic Extremists in an attempted coup, which would involve the assassination of Colonel Qadhafi, the head of the Libyan state.

in exchange for MI6's support, the Libyan agreed to hand over the two Lockerbie suspects when he took power after the assassination of Colonel Qadhafi.

although the Libyan led the group, he was not an Islamic Extremist himself.

the "walk-in" MI6 record which PT16/B thought was enough to confirm that the Libyan did have the access to the regime that he claimed.
At some point, PT16/B told me that the Libyan was codenamed TUNWORTH. At some point in the following weeks, I saw the printout of SIS's record of TUNWORTH . I checked the Libyan's name against DURBAR and STAR .

PT16/B issued one or two CX reports detailing intelligence provided by TUNWORTH at his meeting with the SIS officer for it so G9 assessed that TUNWORTH had some access to the regime.

Throughout this process, I briefed at the time G9A/1 and my line manager, about these developments. I told him that this might be more 'Boys' Own stuff' on the part of SIS and that we shouldn't take it too seriously although we agreed to review this in the light of new information. I don't know if G9A/1 passed this information to his manager, , at the time G9/0.

Shortly after, PT16/B told me that he had met TUNWORTH, in and paid him £30,000. A couple of months after the walk-in, at the time G9A/15, told me that PT16/B had told her the same information "in confidence".

In December 1995, , at the time at MI6, circulated a CX report to Whitehall and other addressees. On it was the SIS agent file number for TUNWORTH. It reported intelligence of a potential coup in Libya. The report also detailed the requirements of the group in terms of equipment and weaponry. The report was much longer than a usual CX report. It was three or four sides of A4.

The name of the agent and the fact that he was involved in the plot were not made clear in the CX report as is usual in such cases. (If MI6 had not issued the report, it would have been criticised by those not privy to its role in the plot for failing to gather prior intelligence of it). I filed MI5's copy of the report on file SF754-0168, called I think Matters of Security Interest in Libya . I copied the report to other members of staff, including I think G9/0. I then discussed the copy with G9A/1. He was happy to deal with the repercussions.

During routine G9/PT16 meetings around this time, officers occasionally mentioned the plot. both held the position of G9A/17 at this time and may have heard it being discussed.

PT16/B then met TUNWORTH on two further occasions early in 1996. I don't know of any further details except that PT16/B mentioned that he had paid "similar sums" to TUNWORTH on each occasion.

At some point -- I can't be sure when exactly -- PT16/B mentioned that the submission, SIS jargon for the letter requesting permission from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office for sensitive operations, was going to go "all the way to the top". In about January 1996, PT16/B told me that the submission had been successful, indicating that the Foreign Secretary himself had signed the document permitting the operation. (This information is challenged by the findings of the Panorama investigation).

In either February or March 1996, I read two quoting independent sources. I think they were and . I also vaguely remember a third report. They all stated that an attack had been made on Colonel Qadhafi in Sirte, Libya. Two of the reports indicated that the attackers had tried to assassinate Qadhafi when he was part of a cavalcade but had failed as they had targeted the wrong car. As a result of the explosion and the ensuing chaos in which shots were fired, civilians and security police were maimed and killed.

At a meeting shortly after, PT16/B ventured to me in a note of triumph that TUNWORTH had been responsible for the attack. I believe that , at the time G9A/15 or G9A/15 designate, , G9A/17, and , at the time PT16/B1, also attended this meeting. I promptly passed the information on to my line manager, G9A/1. He said he would deal with the matter.

MI6 'halted bid to arrest bin Laden'Startling revelations by French intelligence experts back David Shayler's alleged 'fantasy'about Gadaffi plot

Martin Bright, home affairs editor The Observer, Sunday 10 November 2002 01.48 GMT Article historyBritish intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi in 1996 and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.
The latest claims of MI6 involvement with Libya's fearsome Islamic Fighting Group, which is connected to one of bin Laden's trusted lieutenants, will be embarrassing to the Government, which described similar claims by renegade MI5 officer David Shayler as 'pure fantasy'.

The allegations have emerged in the book Forbidden Truth , published in America by two French intelligence experts who reveal that the first Interpol arrest warrant for bin Laden was issued by Libya in March 1998.

According to journalist Guillaume Dasquié and Jean-Charles Brisard, an adviser to French President Jacques Chirac, British and US intelligence agencies buried the fact that the arrest warrant had come from Libya and played down the threat. Five months after the warrant was issued, al-Qaeda killed more than 200 people in the truck bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The arrest warrant was issued in connection with the murder in March 1994 of two German anti-terrorism agents, Silvan and Vera Becker, who were in charge of missions in Africa. According to the book, the resistance of Western intelligence agencies to the Libyan concerns can be explained by MI6's involvement with the al-Qaeda coup plot.

The Libyan al-Qaeda cell included Anas al-Liby, who remains on the US government's most wanted list with a reward of $25 million for his capture. He is wanted for his involvement in the African embassy bombings. Al-Liby was with bin Laden in Sudan before the al-Qaeda leader returned to Afghanistan in 1996.

Astonishingly, despite suspicions that he was a high-level al-Qaeda operative, al-Liby was given political asylum in Britain and lived in Manchester until May of 2000 when he eluded a police raid on his house and fled abroad. The raid discovered a 180-page al-Qaeda 'manual for jihad' containing instructions for terrorist attacks.

The Observer has been restrained from printing details of the allegations during the course of the trial of David Shayler, who was last week sentenced to six months in prison for disclosing documents obtained during his time as an MI5 officer. He was not allowed to argue that he made the revelations in the public interest.

During his closing speech last week, Shayler repeated claims that he was gagged from talking about 'a crime so heinous' that he had no choice but to go to the press with his story. The 'crime' was the alleged MI6 involvement in the plot to assassinate Gadaffi, hatched in late 1995.

Shayler claims he was first briefed about the plot during formal meetings with colleagues from the foreign intelligence service MI6 when he was working on MI5's Libya desk in the mid-Nineties.

The Observer can today reveal that the MI6 officers involved in the alleged plot were Richard Bartlett, who has previously only been known under the codename PT16 and had overall responsibility for the operation; and David Watson, codename PT16B. As Shayler's opposite number in MI6, Watson was responsible for running a Libyan agent, 'Tunworth', who was was providing information from within the cell. According to Shayler, MI6 passed £100,000 to the al-Qaeda plotters.

The assassination attempt on Gadaffi was planned for early 1996 in the Libyan coastal city of Sirte. It is thought that an operation by the Islamic Fighting Group in the city was foiled in March 1996 and in the gun battle that followed several militants were killed. In 1998, the Libyans released TV footage of a 1996 grenade attack on Gadaffi that they claimed had been carried out by a British agent.

Shayler, who conducted his own defence in the trial, intended to call Bartlett and Watson as witnesses, but was prevented from doing so by the narrow focus of the court case.

During the Shayler trial, Home Secretary David Blunkett and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw signed Public Interest Immunity certificates to protect national security. Reporters were not able to report allegations about the Gadaffi plot during the course of the trial.

These restrictions have led to a row between the Attorney General and the so-called D-Notice Committee, which advises the press on national security issues.

The committee, officially known as the Defence, Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee, has objected to demands by the prosecution to apply the Official Secrets Act retrospectively to cover information already pub lished or broadcast as a result of Shayler's disclosures. Members of the committee, who include senior national newspaper executives, are said to be horrified at the unprecedented attempt to censor the media during the trial.

Shayler claims Watson later boasted that there had been MI6 involvement in the Libyan operation. Shayler was also planning to call a witness to the conversation in which the MI6 man claimed British intelligence had been involved in the coup attempt.

According to Shayler, the woman, an Arabic translator at MI5, was also shocked by Watson's admission that money had been paid to the plotters.

Despite the James Bond myth, MI6 does not have a licence to kill and must gain direct authorisation from the Foreign Secretary for highly sensitive operations. Malcolm Rifkind, the Conservative Foreign Secretary at the time, has repeatedly said he gave no such authorisation.

It is believed Watson and Bartlett have been relocated and given new identities as a result of Shayler's revelations. MI6 is now said to be resigned to their names being made public and it is believed to have put further measures in place to ensure their safety.

A top-secret MI6 document leaked on the internet two years ago confirmed British intelligence knew of a plot in 1995, which involved five colonels, Libyan students and 'Libya veterans who served in Afghanistan'.

Ashur Shamis, a Libyan expert on radical Islam said: 'There was a rise in the activities of the Islamic Fighting Group from 1995, but many in Libya would be shocked if MI6 was involved.'