Libya: September 6 as it happened

Abdulati al-Obeidi told the BBC that Britain had accepted Libyan indications that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi’s release was an unwritten quid pro quo of the multi-billion pound contract.

There was a hint that releasing him would help but it was not a condition... The Libyan side, and you know the British, they know how to take things

22.30 Abdulhakim Behladj, the leader of the Tripoli Military Council, who claims he was tortured by the CIA and handed over to Col Gaddafi's security apparatus in a deal brokered by MI6 has said he will demand an apology from Britain.

Dominic Asquith, the former British ambassador to Cairo who arrived in Libya to reopen diplomatic ties this week, and is seeking a meeting with Abdulhakim Belhadj, the leader of the Tripoli Military Council.

Mr Belhadj, a former Emir of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, told The Daily Telegraph that their meeting would be dominated by his recollections of his torture.

Any meeting I have with the British ambassador will all be about this case

22.00 Our main story tonight - secret diplomatic moves were under way to enable to Col Muammar Gaddafi to leave Libya and seek temporary asylum in a sympathetic country such as Burkina Faso or Niger.

Talks have been taking place over a deal to ensure the deposed dictator escapes a final reckoning with the rebels, so sparing Libya any further bloodshed.

However, it is understood that the negotiations have yet to resolve the former leader’s final destination.

“The deal isn’t cooked yet,” an official familiar with the negotiations said. Claims that the talks were being brokered by South Africa were denied.

21.00 Meanwhile at Bani Walid, the fate of the Gaddafi stronghold appeared in the balance as talks stall amid new threats of bloodshed. The rebels can't appear to decide whether talks have been successful or they have broken down.

20.15 Muammar Gaddafi deployed special squads held suspected opponents in shipping containers and tortured them for information about insurgent networks, according to a report by news agency Reuters.

18.29 UPDATED The BBC has new images of the Lockerbie bomber and have been speaking to his son Khaled al-Megrahi. He told reporters:

I want everbody, especially in the UK and specifically in Scotland to see my dad, how he’s so sick because I see in the news, some people say he’s not sick, he’s not at home, and some people say he’s run away, but I want you to come and see my dad and he can’t move from his room and he’s still in his room, inbetween his mother and me and brother and sister.

^{Al-Megrahi at his home in Tripoli BBC}

18.20 The US has said that it does not believe Gaddafi is in the convoy making its way across the Sahara desert in Niger. A State Department spokeswoman said they still believe he is in Libya.

18.00 A video of earlier peace negotiations between the rebels and tribal elders in Bani Walid:

17.58 Water supplies to Tripoli have been reconnected. Engineers repaired wells in the south today which had apparently been cut off by Gaddafi forces in Sirte.

The capital depends on a system of channels known as the Great Man-Made River which transport water from aquifers in the desert.

17.25 Nato raids on Bani Walid may have killed 38 people, a Birmingham dentist with close links to the town has told the Guardian. An unverified report quotes Aziz Daw as saying:

They bombed the only hotel we have in Bani Walid, they bombed a technical college, they bombed a military compound ... and they bombed a sports compound. That's what they [his contacts] said to me. I know my city, I know my town. They bombed one family house and about 12 people died. Some of the people died in the military compound, some died in the sports compound, but the total people lost from Bani Walid from Nato raids is about 38 people, within the last week[s].

16.49 Our man in Benghazi, Rob Crilly, has more on speculation that Gaddafi is heading to Burkina Faso. He suggests a deal could have been brokered by the South African government as had previously been attempted.

Two weeks ago, a diplomat the African Union tried to do a deal with Gaddafi which was brokered by the South African government. Two South African jets were on standby in Tunisia to whisk the Libyan leader - who has been a generous donor to governments across the African continent - to exile in either Zimbabwe or Angola. In the end the rebels moved in to Tripoli before a deal could be done and any new agreement will be a shock to the rebels in Libya who would think the time for such talks was long gone.

^{Fighting contiunes on the streets of Tripoli REUTERS}

16.44 Burkina Faso was elusive when addressing reports the convoy was heading to Ouagadougou. A government official said:

We have no such information at the moment. Obviously, if they cross our border, we will find out... We are simply going to monitor the situation throughout the day.

16.26 More than a thousand "terrified" migrants are stranded in the southern Libyan town of Sebha, the International Organisation for Migration has told AFP.

Sebha is still in the hands of Kadhafi and is circled by rebels.

With no electricity, fuel, and little food and water, the situation for the migrants and those in the town is becoming increasingly difficult.

16.04 Violent Islamist groups may take advantage of a security vacuum caused by the Arab Spring uprisings, experts at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) have warned. Emile Hokayem, a senior IISS fellow told a press conference:

I'm not saying that terrorist activities will necessarily happen but the collapse of security states is certainly something that creates an operational opportunity for these groups.

At the same time Islamist groups, including violent ones, realise that to be relevant they have to be engaged in the new politics of the Arab world and that means engaging in elections, in coalition politics, in parliamentary politics.

A report by the body also warned that democracy was not the inevitable outcome of the revolts in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt.

15.31 There has been some heavy shelling in east Libya, according to Sky News's Neal Mann. He tweets:

Ambulances still bringing wounded back from the front #Libya

This is the heaviest fighting that we have seen in the past two weeks in east #Libya, shelling is still continuing.

Unit of rebels has just been ambushed during fighting, one dead & at least 6 wounded brought in to field hospital just back from front line

The only casualty I have seen so far has been what the rebels say was a pro-Gaddafi soldier who had been shot through both legs #Libya

The artillery fire was accurate and on to rebel tank positions, pro-Gaddafi forces highly likely to have had eyes on it. #Libya

Yesterday afternoon we were at the same village and about 10 minutes after we left it was shelled by pro-Gaddafi forces.

Heavy battle ongoing, it started this morning at village around 80km from Sirte, rebels coming under sustained artillery bombardment #Libya

15.10 UPDATED The convoy that arrived in Agadez late last night has now reached Niamey.

Gaddafi's security chief Mansour Dao is at the head of the group, according to news agency AP, with 12 other loyalist officials including Niger's Tuareg rebel leader Rissa ag Boula. Gaddafi was NOT with the convoy according to reports.

Scroll down to 11.42 for a map of the convoy's possible route.

15.09 More convoys are en route from Libya to Niger, according to Andy Carvin on Twitter. More soon.

14.55 After reports this morning of Abdel Hakim Belhadj's apparent torture at the hands of the Gaddafi regime, Con Coughlin says he should be thanking MI6 rather than demanding an apology for handing him over.

After all the British government has done for Abdel Hakim Belhadj, I find it astonishing that he should be demanding an apology from MI6 over claims that they helped to send him back to Libya, where he claims he was tortured by Col Gaddafi’s henchmen.

Were it not for the heroic performance of the RAF and the rest of the Nato alliance that has helped the Libyan rebels to overthrow Gaddafi’s regime, Belhadj would not now be residing in style in Tripoli, where he is the head of the main anti-Gaddafi militia and an influential member of the National Transitional Council.

14.12 Here is a YouTube clip of what appears to be Khaled Kaim's arrest. Unconfirmed footage.

14.05 Gaddafi's former deputy foreign minister Khaled Kaim has been arrested, Al Jazeera is reporting. Reporter James Bays says although Kaim's title does not seem very senior, this is important as he was one of the few people entitled to talk to the press on behalf of the regime.

13.40 Weapons have been seized from a pro-Gaddafi tribe near Sirte.

More than 100 Kalashnikov rifles, four 12.7 mm machine guns and three rocket-propelled grenade launchers were found in a dawn raid 62 miles east of Sirte.

There was reportedly no violence when the arms were seized.

13.10 Interestingly, a former Saddam Hussein tracker has told Reuters the key to finding Gaddafi is closing in on his bodyguards, using local intelligence and "psychological warfare".

Retired Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Russell said Gaddafi had traits similar to Saddam and other ego-driven autocrats that made him likely to rely on a small network of ultra-loyalists.

In the hunt for Saddam in 2003, the US military created a fake insurgent group to draw out his supporters. Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Russell and his unit put up posters of Saddam dressed as a woman and Elvis Presley to try and agitate his backers into showing themselves.

We thought that if we could find the bodyguards, they may be good at protecting him, but not so good at protecting themselves. We knew that if we could find them and track them, they would probably lead us to Saddam.

We would get tips from locals constantly saying 'they're here, we're seeing them', referring to Saddam's bodyguards, so we knew he had to be around even if we didn't know exactly where he was. It was a matter of time.

Like Saddam, he's probably too vain and too proud to leave Libya because he identifies everything about who he is with being powerful in his own country.

12.43 UPDATED Niger Foreign Minister Mohamed Bazoum has said that Gaddafi is NOT in the convoy. It is however in their interest that Gaddafi is not in the convoy so the denial could be political.

It is not true, it is not Gaddafi and I do not think the convoy was of the size attributed to it.

12.39 Rob Crilly in Benghazi has some more on the peace talks in Bani Walid.

Colonel Ahmed Omar Bani, spokesman for the rebel army in Benghazi, has confirmed that a deal has been done for the peaceful handover of Bani Walid.

He told me that the road in should be clear of weapons within the next two hours. Everyone optimistic that Sirte will follow by end of the week.

12.30 The BBC's Shaimaa Khalil has been translating snippets of the negotiations in Bani Walid on Twitter:

#Baniwaleed elder to #NTC reps. The biggest problem you will face are the misled young men who are armed and willing to fight you ...[ ]... These young men are victims of a #Gaddafi campaign telling them that you will kill, destroy and rape

#NTC reps: We will insure the security of #Baniwaleed

#Baniwaleed elder says: we are part of the #Libya consensus, we're not an exception. Says that we know you (#NTC forces) come in good faith

#NTC representative assured #Baniwaleed tribal elders that they will not attack anything or anyone in the town .. #Libya

12.20 UPDATED Gaddafi's intelligence chief Mansour Daw is in the convoy, Niger’s Nomade FM radio claims. It is believed that Tuareg rebel leader Rissa ag Boula, a native of Niger, is at the head of the convoy. Boula, who took refuge in Libya after a failed war in his homeland, is believed to be fighting on behalf of Gaddafi.

^{Libya's National Transition Council (NTC) negotiators and tribal elders from Bani Walid meet in a mosque near the besieged town REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal}

12.17 Peace talks in Bani Walid have reached a conclusion. Representatives of Libya’s National Transitional Council have agreed with elders for the peaceful handover of the town to their control, according to Bloomberg.

The men gathered to speak in a mosque in Bani Walid in a meeting aired live by Al Jazeera television today.

The rebels said they came in peace and would respect law and order. They outlined plans to restore water supplies and electricity. The tribal elders said more than 90 percent of Bani Walid residents want the peaceful entry of NTC fighters.

The council’s forces said that Gaddafi’s loyalists tried to prevent Bani Walid’s handover because they feared arrest and execution for their part in his government’s crimes.

12.12 The rebel government is in the process of moving from Benghazi to Tripoli. Rob Crilly says the rebels face tough decisions over the move.

If there was one lesson to be learned from the Iraq war it was that a political vacuum must be avoided at all costs. Libya’s new leaders know this and have made all the right noises about moving to the capital Tripoli to take control of their country. On Friday night, after returning from a conference in Paris where he was promised access to $110bn in frozen assets, Mustapha Abdel Jalil, the head of the National Transitional Council, said the rebel leadership would be in Tripoli later this week. But so far he has set no date and some diplomats in Benghazi, the cradle of the uprising against Gaddafi, are once again jittery that this deadline will go the way of previous promises to move.

12.08 Many Libyans are refusing to watch the new television station set up after Gaddafi was driven from power. Muhsen al-Gubbi, a 30-year-old fighter from the western city of Misrata is just one of them.

He says the station, controlled by National Transitional Council spokesman Mahmoud Shammam, rarely mentions the role played by Misrata’s fighters in defeating Gaddafi’s army.

They don’t want to say anything about Misrata. I don’t know what they want — for Misrata’s revolution to disappear, that’s what they want.

11.42 There is speculation that if Gaddafi is in the convoy, they could be heading through Niger to Burkina Faso - a country where the former leader has been offered asylum. Here is a map of the possible route:

View Gaddafi forces cross border to Niger in a larger map

11.30 After reports that Gaddafi may have fled, NATO has said it is not tracking "fleeing former regime leaders" in Libya. Colonel Roland Lavoie, the NATO mission's military spokesman said:

To be clear, our mission is to protect the civilian population in Libya, not to track and target thousands of fleeing former regime leaders, mercenaries, military commanders and internally displaced people.

11.23 The convoy that crossed into Niger was carrying money from a branch of the Central Bank of Libya, an NTC spokesman has said. The money was allegedly taken from a bank in Sirte - the birthplace of the fugitive strongman.

11.18 Rob Crilly, our man in Benghazi, says everyone in the city is watching the peace negotiations between tribal elders and the new rebel government.

Everyone in Benghazi is glued to the television. Al Jazeera Arabic is showing live negotiations between Bani Walid elders and rebel commanders, all sitting cross-legged on a carpet.

It's riveting TV as elders demand assurances that rebels will not exact revenge on a town closely associated with the Gaddafi regime.

One of the conditions of the talks from the rebels was apparently that it be broadcast live so people living in Bani Walid - and Sirte - could see they are not the two-headed monsters of the pro-Gaddafi propagandists.

11.00 More details about the tank convoy are emerging. Tripoli's new regime said there were around 200 cars in the convoy and a military source has told AFP that it reached the city of Agadez in Niger late last night. The source said:

I saw an exceptionally large and rare convoy of several dozen vehicles enter Agadez from Arlit... and go towards Niamey. There are persistent rumours that Gaddafi or one of his sons are travelling in the convoy.

10.47 China has responded to the accusations yesterday that it offered to sell the Gaddafi regime $200 million worth of weapons during the rebellion.

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Jiang Yu said it will tighten control over arms exports.

This was an act of individuals, of relevant companies and this contact did not lead to any actual act of export. China will continue to strictly implement the UN resolution and further strengthen management of military exports.

10.35 A source close to Burkina Faso's presidency has told Reuters that he was unaware of any imminent plan by fallen Libyan leader or any of his entourage to arrive in the West Africa country.

It is not true. We are not aware of this

10.30 Tribal leaders are holding a meeting in Bani Walid in a final attempt to end the bloodshed and reach a peace deal.

10.20 Col Gaddafi's spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said the dictator was "healthy and in good spirits" earlier. Here is a clip of what he said.

10.05 UPDATED An Al Jazeera correspondent in Tripoli tells us more about the convoy to Niger. He says there are a lot of conflicting reports but there is "no doubt" that the convoys had many key Gaddafi advisers on board. There have been some unconfirmed reports that Gaddafi was leading the convoy.

Libya's new oil and gas minister also told the news station that the rebel goverment were now prioritising reaching a peace deal rather than finding the former dictator.

09.45 A report in the Guardian suggests Abdel Hakim Belhadj's torture claims will put pressure on Whitehall to keep a closer eye on the conduct of spy agencies.

Pressure was mounting for tougher and more effective oversight of Britain's intelligence agencies as the disclosure of secret documents in Tripoli appeared to provoke panic and disarray across Whitehall.

With confidential papers from Libya raising important questions about the conduct of MI5 and MI6, particularly regarding the rendition of prisoners to countries where they faced torture, MPs said the system of scrutiny had to be changed.

A forthcoming inquiry into the UK's involvement in the torture and abuse of detainees, chaired by the retired judge Sir Peter Gibson, said it would investigate the latest allegations, which involve the capture and transfer to Tripoli in 2004 of two Libyan dissidents opposed to the Gaddafi regime. In a Commons statement on Monday, David Cameron welcomed the move to investigate the new "accusations of malpractice" and said ministers from the last government would have to answer for what happened.

09.24 China has said it will recognise Libya's National Transitional Council as the legitimate government "when conditions are ripe", the Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday, without saying what those conditions would be. China has not joined Western powers in formally recognising the NTC as the legitimate authority in Libya, but has acknowledged its "important role" after Muammar Gaddafi's ousting as the rebels swept into Tripoli last month.

09.16 Of all the Libya stories written in the past six months I don't think I've read one that involved Tesco - until today. The Daily Mirror has a great tale about Stuart Chambers, a Tesco director, who saved 11 refugees from a sinking ship while he holidayed with his family on his luxury yacht. The 55-year-old was sailing between Greece and Italy when he spotted the small vessel packed with Pakistanis who had flown war-torn Libya. As the refugees screamed for help he managed to pull 11 of them aboard with the help of his wife and two family friends. Tragically 19 others died.

08.56 Newspaper revelations about the secret service’s dealings with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s spy masters would have horrified the spooks of George Smiley’s day, writes Con Coughlin. He questions whether MI6 should have come in from the cold and writes:

In the spying game, there is no greater indignity an intelligence service can suffer than to see its secrets splashed all over the front of the morning’s newspapers. So it is not difficult to imagine the extreme discomfiture senior officers at Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service (or MI6, as it is more familiarly known) are today experiencing over embarrassing revelations relating to its past involvement with Colonel Gaddafi.

08.51 Al-Jazeera has reported that rebels have struck a deal with Gaddafi representatives in Bani Walid to enter the town without fighting later on Tuesday.

^{Libyan rebels secure a checkpoint on the road between Tarhuna and Bani Walid, southeast of Tripoli}

08.50 Reuters reports that dozens of Libyan army vehicles have crossed into Niger and that Col Gaddafi may be among them. The convoy of between 200 and 250 vehicles was given an escort by the army of Niger, an impoverished and landlocked former French colony to the south of Libya, and might, according to a French military source, be joined by Gaddafi en route for neighbouring Burkina Faso, which has offered him asylum, Reuters said.

^{A National Transitional Council tank takes up a position on the front line in Om El Khanfousa, 100 km (62 miles) east of Sirte}

08.45 A Libyan rebel commander has claimed UK intelligence agents knew he was being tortured but did nothing to help him.Abdul Hakim Belhadj said he clearly signalled his physical abuse during an interview in Tripoli but nothing was done to stop the violence against him. Belhadj is threatening to sue the British Government for its alleged involvement in his 2004 rendition and subsequent imprisonment. He told The Times that during a meeting with three British agents he made chopping motions with his hands to signal his treatment. He said:

They moved their heads and agreed... they got my message... I have no doubt, not a single doubt, they knew

08.43 There are more developments on the possible whereabouts of Gaddafi's family. Damien McElroy, our Foreign Affairs Correspondent, says Col Gaddafi's immediate family are under under close confinement at a luxurious villa in pine forests west of Algiers, in Algeria. He says:

The 12-strong group, led by Col Gaddafi’s wife Safia, daughter Aisha, sons Moham­mad and Hannibal, plus other relations, are under guard near the state residence complex overlooking the Mediterranean. Sources in Algiers said the family were taken to the area, which is home to senior regime figures, after they were transferred by private jet from a Sahara oasis at the weekend

08.41 Col Gaddafi's spokesman has claimed that the dictator is still in Libya and in "high spirits". Moussa Ibrahim told Syrian-based television station Arrai TV:

The leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi is in excellent health in high spirits. He is present and well and in good health and in a place that can't be reached by those fractious groups and he is in Libya.

08.40 Also in today's Daily Telegraph, Christopher Hope reports that the chief suspect in the Yvonne Fletcher murder case was a key contact for the Foreign Office, secret British intelligence papers found in Tripoli suggest. Our Whitehall Editor writes that Sir Mark Allen, who at the time was head of counter-terrorism for MI6, raised the name of Matouk Mohammed Matouk in a private letter to Moussa Koussam, the Libyan foreign minister, in late 2003.

08.37 Gordon Rayner, The Telegraph's Chief Reporter, and Richard Spencer, in Tripoli, report that a CIA flight taking dissident back to Tripoli 'refuelled on British island’ in Diego Garcia’. They write that Abdel Hakim Belhadj, now a leader of the rebel forces, was flown in 2004 from Bangkok to Tripoli where was repeatedly tortured. They report:

Dated March 6, 2004, the document, sets out the “Schedule for the rendition of Abdullah Al-Sadiq” (a pseudonym for Mr Belhadj) and states that it would land in Diego Garcia at 03.30GMT on March 9, take on 10,000 gallons of fuel and take off for Tripoli two hours later.

08.35 MI6 was given ministerial approval for its role in delivering a Libyan dissident into the hands of Col Muammar Gaddafi, The Daily Telegraph has learnt.

08.30 Good morning all. Welcome to our live coverage of Libya on Tuesday, September 6.

• Libya: September 5 as it happened
• Libya September 2: as it happened
• Libya: September 1 as it happened
• Libya: August 31 as it happened
• Libya: August 30 as it happened
• Libya, August 29 as it happened
• Libya, August 28 as it happened
• Libya, August 27 as it happened
• Libya, August 26 as it happened
• Libya, August 25 as it happened
• Libya, August 24 as it happened
• Libya, August 23: fall of Gaddafi's Tripoli compound
• Libya, August 22: endgame for Gaddafi
• Libya, August 21: fall of Tripoli