With Colonel Gaddafi’s compound lying in ruins and every self-respecting reporter
combing through the wreckage, it was only a matter of time before documents of a dictatorship became public. Most explosively, the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen has found letters to and from the Secret
Intelligence Service which suggest complicity in extraordinary rendition and, as was suggested on the Today Programme
yesterday, an unseemly chuminess with Libya’s spies.
If any part of the British state took part in illegal acts – which extraordinary rendition is – then this is a very serious matter. But it should be said no evidence has hitherto been found of this by any number of inquiries. The Gibson Inquiry will now have look again, as is only right, and it must now follow any lead picked up in Tripoli. But it is probably wise to wait for a considered judgement on this rather than to conclude anything based on one or two letters.
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