Libya News_Analysis: we must thank Koussa for disarming Libya

Analysis: we must thank Koussa for disarming Libya

At first glance, the charge sheet against Moussa Koussa, Libya's most high-profile defector, appears to be overwhelming: the murder of Pc Yvonne Fletcher, the Lockerbie bombing and sending shipments of Semtex explosives to the IRA.

Moussa Koussa with Col Gaddafi and Tony Blair in 2004 Photo: BBC


By Con Coughlin, Executive Foreign Editor 10:25PM BST 31 Mar 2011

All of these criminal acts took place when Mr Koussa was one of Col Gaddafi's most trusted confidants. After William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, yesterday insisted that the Government was not offering immunity from prosecution to any Libyan defector, most prosecutors would relish the opportunity to make a prima facie case against Mr Koussa. But if we find that the Government is proving reluctant to bring charges it may well be due to the intriguing relationship the former Libyan intelligence chief has formed with his opposite numbers in British intelligence.

Yesterday, speculation about Mr Koussa's true affiliation intensified after Sir George Young, the Commons leader, told the House that Mr Hague had been in ''regular contact'' with Mr Koussa shortly before his dramatic defection to London. Among his many other duties, Mr Hague is responsible for MI6.

Earlier in the day, the former Labour foreign secretary Jack Straw put the Whitehall rumour mill into overdrive by declaring that Mr Koussa was a "key contact" for Britain. Mr Straw was referring to the delicate negotiations that took place between 2002-2003 to persuade Col Gaddafi to give up his nuclear and chemical weapons programmes. Mr Koussa was a key member of the Libyan negotiating team.

Given the impenetrable wall of secrecy that is generally constructed around MI6's most sensitive operations, Mr Koussa's precise role in the disarmament negotiations may never be known.

But the outcome was very much to Britain's advantage, particularly now that RAF jets are playing a lead role in the attempts to impose a no-fly zone over Libyan air space. The task would be made far more difficult if Col Gaddafi had a nuclear weapons arsenal at his disposal.

Reports from Libya suggest that Mr Koussa's role in the negotiations is the reason he fell out with the Col Gaddafi clan shortly before he fled into exile. The Libyan dictator openly questioned the wisdom of surrendering his weapons of mass destruction to a country that is now launching daily bombing raids against his regime.

Irrespective of whose side Mr Koussa has been on all these years, at the very least we owe him our thanks for helping to disarm one of the world's most violent and irrational dictators.