Libya

The news that Ziyad Ali Hashem, a control order detainee in the UK (previously identified only as DD) has had his control order lifted elicits two particular responses from those who have been aware of his case since he was first deprived of his liberty in November 2005: firstly, relief that his ordeal is at [...]

For the Guardian’s Comment is free, “Letting go of control orders” is an article I wrote examining whether the government’s much-criticized system of house arrest for terror suspects held without charge or trial on the basis of secret evidence is on the verge of collapse after a judge quashed the control order that had kept [...]

Befriending dictators, as the UK and US have been doing with Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi since British Prime Minister Tony Blair made an official visit to Libya in March 2004, brings with it its own set of unprincipled compromises. In Libya’s case, the resultant hypocrisy has been starkly delineated. Although reviled as a sponsor of international [...]

On Saturday, I was honoured to be invited along as a guest speaker at an event entitled, “Exile: Dreams and Nightmares” at the BFI (British Film Institute), part of an impressive week-long programme to mark Refugee Week. Saturday’s event featured four powerful documentaries by Mohamed Maklouf, a film-maker, journalist and Libyan exile, including “Home In [...]

In a world exclusive, Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, reveals new information, from a source in Libya, about Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the former US “ghost prisoner” who died in a Libyan jail last month, focusing, in particular, on the prisons in which he was held, and the ways in which torture was used [...]

For the Guardian’s Comment is free, “Death in Libya, betrayal in the West” is an article I wrote in response to news of the death, in a Libyan jail, of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi. A prisoner of the “War on Terror,” who was subjected to “extraordinary rendition” and torture for four years before being returned to [...]

After I picked up on the breaking story of the death of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi on Sunday evening (with follow-up articles here and here), there was considerable interest from bloggers, including, in particular, the Brad Blog and Empty Wheel at Firedoglake, before the mainstream media finally picked up on it.
It remains to be seen whether [...]

The Brad Blog, which picked up on the story of the strange death of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi shortly after I published the first account in the Western media on Sunday evening, asked a question yesterday evening that I had been asking myself throughout the day:
So, it’s been about 16 hours since we covered indie journalist [...]

For new readers, this article provides an overview of the story of the death of US “high-value detainee” Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, his “extraordinary rendition” by the CIA, and the torture that led to his false confession about a connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. It draws on my article yesterday, announcing his death, and another [...]

The Arabic media is ablaze with the news that Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, the emir of an Afghan training camp — whose claim that Saddam Hussein had been involved in training al-Qaeda operatives in the use of chemical and biological weapons was used to justify the invasion of Iraq — has died in a Libyan jail. [...]