China visa was easy to get, says tortured Libyan Sami al-Saadi

A Libyan dissident who escaped the grip of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi by hiding on the mainland has claimed Beijing freely opened its doors to him in 2003, with a visa approval process that was "so easy".

However, Sami al-Saadi's efforts to escape persecution by Gaddafi's regime were thwarted in 2004 when Hong Kong security officials, in co-operation with US and British intelligence agents, allegedly forced the suspected terrorist, his wife and four young children back to Tripoli, where he claims he endured years of torture by Gaddafi's men. Saadi fled Libya in 1988 after being jailed a few years earlier for handing out anti-Gaddafi leaflets.

The alleged rendition in March 2004 occurred when Saadi - a founding member of the Libyan Islamist Fighting Group - arrived in Hong Kong believing he had safe passage to return to Britain, where he had previously gained political asylum. Instead, he and his family were detained at Chek Lap Kok for having fake French passports and, less than two weeks later, were sent back to Tripoli on a secret flight.

In a new report by the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), Saadi claims Hong Kong police talked about the CIA's role while he and his family were locked in a video-monitored room for 13 days in March 2004.

"They were talking in their own language and I didn't understand everything, but I did hear 'CIA' about four or five times, so I expected that something not good was about to happen," Saadi said, according to the report.

A year before his arrest in Hong Kong, Saadi evaded possible capture by US forces in Malaysia by fleeing to the Chinese mainland because he already had the appropriate papers.

"The Chinese visa was so easy for us," Saadi said in the report. "The Chinese were receiving people from everywhere."