So Gaddafi is a psychotic murderer: don’t say you weren’t warned

It is nearly two decades since the murder of Ali Abuzeid, a Libyan dissident, who was cut down on the streets of London in the most brutal fashion. Having been identified as one of Colonel Gaddafi’s “stray dogs”, he was tracked down to his west London grocery, where he was living out his time in exile and assassinated. It was a particularly brutal murder: kebab skewers were thrust through Mr Abuzeid’s face.
 
I first wrote about the case in the Observer with my colleague Antony Barnett when Security Service files were leaked that showed how MI6 had been led a merry dance by a senior Libyan diplomat they had hoped to recruit. The diplomat involved, Khalifa Bazelya, was expelled shortly after the murder.
 
Mr Abuzeid’s brave daughter, Huda, has been pursuing the British government over the case ever since. Her appearance on Newsnight opposite Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander this week reminded me of how shameful the Blair government’s realpolitik was with regard to Libya.