Hong Kong in spotlight over secret rendition
British decision not to prosecute top spy means SAR could face difficult questions
Hong Kong’s central role in the kidnap and secret rendition of a Libyan dissident as part of a plot organised by United States and British intelligence is under fresh scrutiny after UK authorities decided not to prosecute a senior member of its spy agency MI6 over the case.
The decision not to prosecute one of Britain’s most senior spies – named in UK media as former senior MI6 officer Sir Mark Allen but referred to by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) as “the suspect” – was based on insufficient evidence.
Explaining their reasons not to prosecute over the illegal detention in and secret rendition of Sami al-Saadi from Hong Kong in 2004, the CPS – England and Wales’ equivalent of the Department of Justice – suggested that the evidence required could be in Hong Kong.
A spokesman for the CPS said: “It is clear, though, that officials from the UK did not physically detain, transfer or ill-treat the alleged victims directly, nor did the suspect have any connection to the initial physical detention of either man or their families.”
The spokesman declined to say if they had passed the investigative dossier to the Hong Kong government, which is currently locked in a legal battle with the dissident’s lawyers over a compensation claim.
In March 2004, Saadi and his wife and four young children were detained at Hong Kong International Airport for almost two weeks before being forced onto a secret flight to Tripoli.
Saadi, an opponent of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, had spent years living in exile in Britain and on the mainland. He was tortured and his family jailed on their return to Libya.
In 2014 a US Senate report found the CIA’s torture of suspected terrorists between 2002 and 2008 was “far more brutal” than the agency had admitted, and that its detention and interrogation programme was “inadequate and deeply flawed”. The Security Bureau refused to say if the Hong Kong government had also asked the U.S. to redact any mention of the SAR’s role in the rendition.
Hong Kong’s complicity in the 2004 kidnapping continues to be shrouded in secrecy as key players refuse to comment despite years of inquiries by this paper.
Details of the city’s involvement only came to light after the Gaddafi regime was toppled in late 2011. Documents unearthed in Libya at that time revealed that now Permanent Secretary for Transport and Housing (Housing) and Director of Housing, Stanley Ying Yiu-hong, who was the permanent secretary for security at the time, was a key contact in ensuring the rendition was carried out quickly. The papers also named Madonna Fung from the Hong Kong Business Aviation Centre – a private jet hub at the airport – as an intermediary.
A government spokesman last night declined to comment on the decision, saying only: “There have been ongoing communication between the legal representatives of the parties concerned... during which the former [lawyers] maintained their intention to assert a claim against the government.”
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