Always knew Jack Straw was a lying shyster

The evidence against Straw and Blair about the rendition and torture of Abdel Hakim Belhaj, who was taken off a plane while in transit in Bangkok and flown to Libya, probably via Diego Garcia after a friend of Mr Belhaj had gone to the British Embassy in Malaysia and sounded out his chances of political asylim in the UK. MI6 tipped off other agencies and the CIA nabbed him. Damningly for MI6 and the government of the day, the MI6 agent running the show, Sir Mark Allen wrote a letter to Musa Kusa, Gaddhaffi's chief of intelligence, not only congratulating the Libyans on the "safe arrival" of the "air cargo", but asking that any intelligence received form the interrogation should be passed to the British and not through the Americans.

Of course, Sir Mark Allen never thought this letter would come to light, but it has, and there is a prima facie case for prosecution, although the likelihood of that is minimal.

Jack Straw was the Labour Foreign Secretary in 2004 when the rendition took place. In an interview on BBC Radio 4 last year he said: "We were opposed to unlawful rendition. We were opposed to any use of torture or similar methods. Not only did we not agree with it, we were not complicit in it and nor did we turn a blind eye to it."  You can tell he was lying because his lips were moving.

Of course it wouldn't be so bad if this supposed terrorist, on which we have been able to pin nothing apart from having been in Afghanistan when bin Laden was on "our" side, wasn't now head of the Tripoli Military Council in the new Libya, and thus the head of the faction that the West had been supporting for many months.  Politicians can twist and spin as much as they like, but in the end the dishonest are caught out by the facts.