Printed on gilt-edged card embossed with the Royal coat of arms, the invitation from Britain’s man in Tripoli was to the social highlight of the diplomatic calendar. “On the occasion of the Birthday of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Her Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador… requests the pleasure of the company of His Excellency Captain Khamis al Qadhafi at a reception on Wednesday, 16 June, 2010.” This was how Britain’s then ambassador to Libya, Richard Northern, extended the VIP treatment to Colonel Gaddafi’s feared fifth son at last year’s annual party in the ambassador’s residence overlooking Tripoli’s palm-lined seafront. With 32 other invitees from the cream of the Libyan military, Khamis would have mixed with guests on the well-kept lawn, and been offered wine or Pimm’s — a rare diplomatic perk in a land whose ruler banned alcohol as a threat to “revolutionary society”. Yet the rolling out of the red carpet to Col Gaddafi’s security establishment was no routine diplomatic courtesy. Documents found by The Sunday Telegraph in the now-abandoned embassy building show that Khamis and his sidekicks were on the guest list not at the behest of Mr Northern, but at the suggestion of the United Kingdom Trade and Industry Defence and Security Organisation (DSO), a Government unit dedicated to promoting British arms exports. The Khamis Brigade, named after its commander-in-chief and staffed by hard-core Gaddafi loyalists, had proved a lucrative customer. In 2007, on the sidelines of the infamous “tent deal” between Tony Blair and Col Gaddafi in the Libyan desert, which paved the way for the Lockerbie bomber’s release, the Brigade signed an £85 million contract for a state-of-the-art command and control system from General Dynamics UK, which installed a similar one for the British Army. The contract, which had Mr Blair’s personal backing, went through despite Khamis being a man whose company generally brought very little “pleasure” to anyone, save, perhaps, for arms dealers. Rebels certain that Khamis Gaddafi is dead 04 Sep 2011 Like the rest of Gaddafi’s immediate clan, he was a figure of fear among ordinary Libyans, who saw him as a hard man being groomed to take over from his father. Diplomats, meanwhile, had long known that his 10,000-strong unit — far better equipped than the rest of Libya’s army — was there to keep the First Family in power at all costs. That assessment proved horrifyingly accurate when the Libyan uprising began in February, as the Khamis Brigade led attempts to crush rebellions in the cities of Benghazi and Misurata. As the fighting spread to Tripoli last month, the brigade appears to have resorted to all-out terror, culminating in the summary execution of at least 45 prisoners at a warehouse near its barracks on Aug 23. “Four soldiers climbed on the top of the warehouse, and another soldier opened the door. They started shooting at us,” said Abdulrahim Ibrahim Bashir, who escaped while the brigade reloaded. “The guy at the door was throwing in grenades. After I escaped, I saw one of the soldiers finish off anyone who was wounded.” Khamis eventually had a taste of his own medicine: after fleeing south from Tripoli, he is thought to have been killed when an Apache helicopter fired a rocket at his armoured car near the town of Bani Walid. Had he remained on the run, the next organisation seeking the pleasure of his company would have been The Hague war crimes court, which is already investigating the warehouse massacre and several other mass graves found near his brigade’s HQ. In the course of that inquiry, there may be questions about why Britain deemed it fit to equip a unit whose name suggested it was a private militia. Last week, a spokesman for the DSO insisted it “did not export equipment where there is a clear risk it could be used for internal repression”. But critics allege that, just as in the case of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, whose release in 2009 was linked to lucrative oil deals, the rush to do business with Gaddafi’s regime overrode ethical concerns. Correspondence found in the embassy, which was ransacked and torched by a pro-Gaddafi mob in May, shows the extraordinary extent to which Britain courted the unit. The General Dynamics contract opened up a new era of close co-operation with the Libyan military, including SAS training for the Khamis Brigade, plans for courses at Sandhurst, trips by British generals to meet Khamis in Libya and taxpayer-funded invitations to the Farnborough Air Show for other Gaddafi military chiefs, with accommodation in five-star London hotels. The documents even show that civil servants advised Khamis on how to block a Freedom of Information request about an invitation to a British arms fair. Nowhere is the eagerness to please more apparent on the British side than in touting the services of the SAS. As with nearly every strongman regime in the Middle East, Britain’s Special Forces long had an appeal for Libya’s elite, who appear to have been as seduced as anyone by their “Who Dares Wins” reputation. Documents show that within a year of signing the General Dynamics contract, MoD officials at the highest rank were fielding queries from Gaddafi’s second son, Saif, about Libyan servicemen attending the SAS’s notoriously tough “selection” course. In a June 2008 letter marked “Restricted — UK/Libya Eyes only”, Maj Gen Robin Searby, the Prime Minister’s defence coordinator to Libya, informed Saif that “regrettably” the course was off-limits to foreigners, and offered him a proposal from a private firm, Arlington Associates, run by two ex-SAS officers. By January 2009, though, clearance had been given for the SAS to train 50 Libyans, including members of the Khamis Brigade, in weapons skills, field craft and “counter-terrorism”. Last week, Maj Gen Searby defended the programme. “There was no reason for the British Government not to be involved with Libya at the time, as it was felt that it was better to have them inside the tent rather than outside,” he told The Sunday Telegraph. He said it had been justified on the basis that the Libyans were woefully behind in counter-terrorism tactics. Yet “terrorism” was always a rather loose term in Gaddafi’s Libya; during first month of the uprising, he branded the rebel movement “al-Qaeda agents”. Maj Gen Searby added that the programme was eventually abandoned, as the Libyan soldiers “were not up to it”. Yet the high-level contacts continued nonetheless. Another military delegation was scheduled to see Khamis in April last year, this time including the chief executive of the DSO, Richard Paniguian, who reported to the then business secretary, Lord Mandelson. Mr Paniguian’s previous job was as vice-president for the Middle East and Africa for BP, which has admitted lobbying for the prisoner transfer agreement that led to Mr Megrahi’s release. In a private speech in September 2009, obtained by the Campaign Against Arms Trade under the Freedom of Information Act, Mr Paniguian boasted that “high-level political interventions” had enhanced the prospect of arms sales to Libya. In general, though, the DSO seems to have been adept at keeping its Libya dealings secret — in particular, an invitation sent to Khamis Gaddafi to attend the 2009 Defence and Security Exhibition in London. A letter from Graham Inett, the embassy’s defence attache, warned Tripoli that the Campaign Against Arms Trade had requested the names of all overseas delegates under an FOI request, and asked if Khamis was “content for this information to be disclosed”. Mr Inett added: “If you are not content, I would ask that you provide me with a formal statement with the reasons, as this will help strengthen the case against release.” It is perhaps no surprise to learn that the FOI request was turned down, on the basis that naming delegates without their approval “could prejudice Government’s ability to conduct similar business with them in future”. Only as the “Arab Spring” blossomed this year did relations between the Libyans and their British quartermasters wilt. In a letter to Tripoli in February, Dr AD Wilson, the head of General Dynamics, railed against a letter of complaint from 32 Brigade, which accused his firm of being behind schedule. A clue for 32 Brigade’s impatience may lie in the date of its letter: January 15. The day before, the president of neighbouring Tunisia, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, had fled: the first casualty of the revolt that then crossed into Libya. Soon British planes would be flying sorties against the very units that the British government had helped to train and arm. Share: inShare 4 Libya News News » World News » Africa and Indian Ocean » Colin Freeman » IN LIBYA NEWS Battle for Gaddafi's stronghold Sirte First footage of 'dead' Gaddafi daughter NTC taking time 'to do the right thing' Gaddafi: Libyan National Transitional Council is 'void and illegitimate' Anti-Gaddafi fighters gather near Sirte
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