"After 42 years of tyrannical rule, Colonel Gaddafi is dead." "World leaders marked him out." "I think today is a day to remember all of Colonel Gaddafi's victims." "But one of Gaddafi's most ruthless henchmen is still on the run." "We tracked him down to his 5-star hideaway in the sun." "How many people are you responsible for torturing Mr. Koussa?" "Moussa Koussa helped propel the Gaddafi regime for four decades." "But he was also Britain's secret friend." "Tonight: how we colluded with him to kidnap Gaddafi's opponents around the world, whilst he was organizing torture and even inflicting abuse himself." "While I was being questioned, Moussa Koussa was shocking me in my neck with the electric rod." "And for the first time, the secret torture tapes, incontrovertible proof of Gaddafi's crimes against humanity." "Britain, Gaddafi and the Torture Trail" "5-star luxury [?" "] hotel in Qatar." "Among the international businessmen and the jet-setting playboys, is this man:" "Moussa Koussa." "He was one of Colonel Gaddafi's inner circle, a ruthless spy chief trusted with the security of the country and stamping out dissent." "He is now on the run." "But what's intriguing is that when he fled Libya at the start of the uprising, he chose to defect to Britain." "Moussa Koussa is still being questioned at a secret location tonight and he's said to be in a very fragile state of mind." "His resignation shows that Gaddafi's regime is fragmented, under pressure, and trembling from within." "Moussa Koussa was at the heart of Gaddafi's regime." "It's long been said "he was involved with the Lockerbie bombing."" "He should also know who was responsible for the shooting of policewoman "Yvonne Fletcher"" "outside the Libyan Embassy in 1984." "So his defection here in March, was an opportunity to get to the truth." "Moussa Koussa is responsible for the death of 270 innocent civilians as well as thousands of his own people as part of the Gaddafi regime." "No matter what he says now, he has to be held accountable for my brother's death and the death of thousands of others." "Now, with Gaddafi dead, Moussa Koussa is the guardian of many of Libya's secrets." "So why, with little explanation, did Britain let him go?" "Now free, Libya is still surrendering its secrets." "For four decades it was closed to the world." "In recent years we saw only a reformed clown, a fading tyrant with pantomime policies, sitting on a lake of oil." "But beneath the organized pro-Gaddafi parties, this was a nation terrorized by secret police, where neighbor informed on neighbor." "Now, those who were once targeted are the ones in charge." "In Tripoli four weeks ago, I was invited out with a snatch team whose job was to capture remnants of the former regime." "They were hunting 25 of Gaddafi's armed supporters hiding out in a dangerous part of town called "Abu Salim"." "Here is the very people who up until a few weeks ago were being rounded up and captured by Gaddafi regime loyalists and now, they're the ones doing the hunting." "An informant had already told them that quarry would fight to death." "Then, incoming fire." "These buildings are dangerous because they're the hiding place for torturers and guards." "People who once worked in Libya's most notorious political prison, just around the corner." "It's in the south of Tripoli, and it's where Gaddafi used to dump his political opponents: real and imagined." "Nearly everybody you speak to in Libya has some kind of dark story about what happened to a friend or a relative behind these walls." "This is Abu Salim prison." "And it's a symbol really of the unbridled brutality of Gaddafi's regime." "When Tripoli failed, the inmates of Abu Salim began freeing themselves." "They hacked open cell doors with anything they could find." "You can see the desperate faces of people who had been locked away here for up to 30 years." "One of them was this man: "Sami al-Saadi"." "This is my cell." " This is it." " From 2007." "Sami was brought here for being the deputy leader of a fighting group intent on assassinating Gaddafi." "He was holed in front of a Kangaroo court, and sentenced the same day." "This is the red uniform, for execution uniform." "It has the same color of the blood and indicates too that this person will be killed." " And this is the uniform that you wore, once you were here?" " Yeah." "They were very happy when they gave me this." " Were they?" "How do you know they were happy?" "Were they smiling?" " Yeah, smiling and joking." "Whilst on death row, Sami was interrogated and tortured." "But remarkable thing is it was the UK which helped send him here into the hands of Moussa Koussa who then ran Libya's intelligence service." "Moussa Koussa once lived in London." "In 1980 he was the Libyan ambassador." "But he was expelled for backing a plan to murder two of Gaddafi's opponents living in the UK." "His official role for more than a decade was Libya's chief of spies." "After Tripoli fail, his old offices were abandoned and torched." "But some documents survived." "They exposed Libya's secret relationship with the UK, in the series of letters between Moussa Koussa and MI6." "These documents are absolutely extraordinary." "They show the real detail of the secret relationship between Britain and America, and Gaddafi's police state." "And what really is amazing is the tone of them, the friendliness, they're cozy and [?" "] at some stages." "And, I guess the people who wrote them just thought they would never see the light of day." "They show one senior MI6 officer looking forward to lunch with Moussa Koussa over Christmas, and signing of the letter: "Your friend, Mark"." "But that's not all." "The documents show British spies were engaged in something far more sinister, something illegal." "The letters show that our secret services colluded with Moussa Koussa to kidnap or render Sami Al-Saadi and others." "They were Gaddafi's political opponents living abroad." "And at the height of the war on terror, Britain considered them terrorists." "In fact, back in the 90s, Sami had lived in London." "He had been given political asylum." "I used to go to market, John Lewis." "Kwiksave, Safeway and Sainsbury's." "But after he left, MI6 became suspicious about his Islamic connections." "They helped to range for him to be snatched from an airport in the Far East and returned to Libya and Moussa Koussa." "Sami and his wife were hooded and bundled onto a plane with their four young children." "They put black plastic on our faces, me and my wife." "Later on my wife said to me, "I thought that they will execute us"." "In the very same week we handed Sami over in 2004," "Tony Blaire arrived to meet with Gaddafi in the desert." "He was our new ally in the war against terror." "In the background, our friend Moussa Koussa." "As Blaire enjoyed the hospitality," "Koussa found time to slip away for a chat with the newly-imprisoned Sami." "He said to me: "Sami, now I can pick up the phone and speak to MI6." "They co-operate with us against you, and told us about the more recent information about you." "And helped us to arrest you."" "Other documents show just how close the relationship is becoming." "In one, a senior MI6 officer said" ""the rendition of a Gaddafi opponent was the least we can do for you", and described the prisoner simply as "cargo"." "But how was that cargo, which we'd helped deliver, treated once arrived in Abu Salim prison." "Libya was giving reassurances that after rendition, none of these prisoners would face any harm." "But, what were their reassurances really worth?" "We were dealing with a secretive police state notorious for torturing and even murdering its political opponents, and yet we were sending people back here, on trust." "Earlier this month, I was out with a raid team again in Tripoli." "They thought they'd found another part of Libya's former spy network: a local security office." "This is the scene they meet where they're not even looking for people to arrest." "This is where they're trying to find stashes of secret documents that are still emerging around Tripoli." "Inside, mobile prisons used to house captured opponents." "And shelves of intelligence used to incriminate them." "But elsewhere, they found something more chilling." "Among the team today, a man who was himself an inmate at Abu Salim prison." "He was tortured with electric shocks." "Some of the equipment they've seized is sickeningly familiar to him." "This is an electric rod which they started torturing me with from the first day." "Torture was by pressing it on my chest." "They used the electric rod here on my chest." "And then I kept saying "I don't know anything, I don't know anything."" "Panorama has now discovered evidence which supports his claims." "The regime that we were doing secret deals with was filming its torture." "The evidence comes from the burnt-out ruins of Abu Salim prison itself." "Amongst the debris, some crucial evidence did survive." "Panorama has acquired hours of footage which shows the truth about how this regime treated some of its political opponents." "It's chilling stuff, much way far too gruesome to broadcast." "But we can show you some." "This was filmed in May this year." "A prisoner, blindfolded, and waiting." "The instrument being used is similar to the one Adel from the raid] team showed us." "The man in the suit is from something called the interrogation committee." "In the 1980s, Moussa Koussa was said to be its director." "This footage was a small fraction of what we found." "There are more, whippings, electric shocks, beatings, all of which reinforce the claims of others." "Like Nouri Al-Burki." "He used to work for Moussa Koussa in the security service." "But he was suspected of being a double agent and working for foreign spy networks." "There were about nine to ten beatings." "My body died and I couldn't feel anything anymore." "But then they grabbed the metal instrument which is a type of stapler used by traders to staple large cardboard boxes, and they began to" " I apologize to the viewers about this - they put my testicles inside the stapler and then they pressed." "Even before the torture started" "Nouri had been paraded in front of his old boss:" "Moussa Koussa; the man MI6 would invite for Christmas lunch." "He was there when I was arrested and he saw me being blindfolded just saw he could come and take a statement for me." "He was sitting down and he was very relaxed." "I was in a really sad state." "He was leading the session and everyone was sitting in their own chair." "But he didn't know that you were being badly treated necessarily." "He knew that I've been tortured and that my honor had been violated." "He knew that very well." "And tonight, we can show that Britain's friend, Moussa Koussa, was attached to the bloodiest massacre of Gaddafi's regime." "When we searched former intelligence offices bombed out by NATO, we managed to salvage some of the regime's surveillance tapes." "They show men gathering outside a mosque." "Gaddafi didn't just round up political opponents, but religious ones too." "This was taken during one of his random clampdowns on Muslims." "They picked out those who appeared the most devout and jailed them." "Some were never seen again." "This man was one of those arrested." "Today, picking up his young son from school, few know what he went through as an inmate in Abu Salim prison." "At the time, Abdul Atti Zahmol was a 24 year old moderate Muslim." "He was taken to Abu Salim with no idea when he'd be released." "Conditions were even worse in 1996." "Malnutrition, no medicine, no electricity, no clean water." "One day, a group of young inmates rebelled." "The prison guard opened the door and they took the keys from him and they beat him up and they tried to escape." "When the young man came out from the sector, they came out and they set off." "They were aiming to escape but they found that this door was locked." "They couldn't get out." "The guard pulled out his machine gun." "Hundreds of prisoners were herded into the court yards." "The guards moved to the rooftop walkways, machine guns trailed on the inmates below." "Shortly after 11 o'clock, they were ordered to fire." "We had screams and beatings, and from 11 to 1:30 we had continuous shooting." "We didn't know what happened exactly and how many were killed." "We didn't guess that they killed just about everyone." "More than 1200 inmates were slaughtered that day." "It took nearly 3 hours." "Abdul Atti only survived because he was hidden by a sympathetic guard." "Now Panorama can reveal that one of the regime's inner circle present as the massacre unfolded was Moussa Koussa, at the time, chief of spies." "This man, Muftah Al-Thawadi, saw him." "He spent nearly 2 decades in jail, 8 years of it in isolation." "His cell had just a hole in the ceiling for light." "On the day of the massacre, Muftah was negotiating face-to-face with Moussa Koussa on behalf of the prisoners." "Moussa Koussa was careful to make sure he was present, so he was there from the beginning, and he made threats, said to me personally." "He don't deserve to live." "He often made threats." "Moussa Koussa was there and he was among those who promised the prisoners that if they went back to their cells, nothing would happen to them, but they were betrayed." "They killed 1200 prisoners." "And Moussa Koussa was amongst those who carry the responsibility for this massacre." "When Moussa Koussa came to Abu Salim prison, people say he used these rooms as his offices." "Often he would leave the interrogation to his juniors and he'd sit here and wait for the victim to be delivered with confession into his presence." "On other occasions, he'd be the one delivering the blows." "First, they stripped me and while I was being questioned," "Moussa Koussa was shocking me in the neck with the electric rod." "And then, while I was talking he told me "shut up!"" "and struck me with the electric rod on my tooth here and broke it." "The man that UK made deals with over rendition and who gave assurances there'd be no torture, had actually tortured people himself." "Weeks into the Libyan uprising, Moussa Koussa began to make his move." "He arrived at the Rixos hotel in Tripoli to announce a bogus ceasefire on behalf of the regime." "Libya has declared an immediate ceasefire and the stoppage of all military operations." "It was a rare public appearance from such a secretive figure, by now Gaddafi's foreign minister." "At the time, his colleagues were shouting for the blood of rebels." "But those present said Moussa Koussa looked uncomfortable, shaky even." "He was clearly struggling to toe the party line." "Now we know why:" "these were his last days in Libya." "Soon after, he slipped away." "He crossed the border into Tunisia, and then on to a country trusted with whom he'd done grubby business before:" "the UK." "He arrived by a private jet at Farnborough airbase, and was then whisked off to a safe house." "He was protected by special branch offices, and agreed to be interviewed briefly by Lockerbie investigators." "As reward for his defection, his assets in the West were unfrozen." "Now he could tap into his significant wealth." "The government came under pressure over questions about why Moussa Koussa hadn't been arrested." "They promised there'd be no secret deal." "Let me be clear." "Moussa Koussa is not being granted immunity." "There is no deal of that kind." "The prime minister and I have made clear there's no immunity from prosecution." "There will be no immunity." "He hasn't asked for that." "BBC News arranged a night-time meeting with Moussa Koussa through British officials." "They won't allow questions, there'd just be statements." "And I personally have relations and good relations with so many Britons." "We work together against terrorism." "Then Koussa said he was off just for a few days for a meeting about the future of Libya to be held in the Gulf state of Qatar." "The British government allowed him to leave." "He never came back." "When we asked the foreign office why they allowed Moussa Koussa to go on his apparently endless trip to Qatar, they said: "Moussa Koussa is a private individual who is free to travel to and from the UK." "It's not our place to provide a running commentary on his movements or his current activities."" "But didn't we ask for some kind of reassurance he was going to come back here, maybe send somebody with him." "Same response again:" ""not our place to provide a running commentary."" "But what about the torture?" "Well they said: "we never condoned torture."" "and asked for the specific allegations," ""those are something you need to take up with the Libyan authorities."" "So it was left to ours to find him." "We suspected he was still in Qatar, the tiny Arab Emirate in the Persian Gulf." "Perhaps the UK let him go because he knew secrets which the British government would prefer never to surface." "A man with his wealth would choose only the most exclusive and discretive places." "We found him in a 5-star hotel in Doha." "And here he is, in the corner of the restaurant, scouring the room for anyone suspicious." "On the right of screen is his bodyguard." "He knows Moussa Koussa could be assassinated at any moment." "Hello Mr. Koussa." "BBC Television." "How many people are you responsible for torturing Mr. Koussa?" "How many people are you responsible for torturing?" "Mr. Koussa!" "Some of them you tortured yourself, didn't you?" "What do you want?" "These are all questions the international criminal courts..." "These are all questions the international criminal courts want to ask Mr. Koussa." "They're very important questions." "I want to know his role also in the massacre of over a thousand people in 1996." "Just I asked what I want to know!" "Mr. Koussa!" "Mr. Koussa!" "I'm interested in your role in the massacre of maybe a thousand people in 1996." "Were you involved at all?" "Ok, go!" "Qatari government security intervened and confiscated our footage." "But, what they didn't realize was that we'd secretly filmed with our other two cameras." "With all the rest of Gaddafi's family and inner circle either dead or on the run, there're bound to be more questions about why such an important figure was allowed to leave the UK." "Moussa Koussa, to be honest, Western governments should know the truth about him." "He is a murderer and a criminal, and his only concern was that his corrupt regime which ruled Libya with iron and fire should remain in power." "This is why it's imperative that the West must hand over this criminal to justice, and he must receive his punishment." "Back in Libya, on rough deserts behind Abu Salim prison," "Abdul Atti is searching for the body of his brother." "He was killed in the prison massacre." "My brother was a really beloved man, in every sense of that word." "He knew God's book." "He was a much better man than I am, to be honest." "Sami is here too." "The Gaddafi opponent jailed after a deal between Britain and Moussa Koussa." "He had two brothers killed in the same event." "Now families are digging for the bodies of more than a thousand missing inmates." "The Earth is starting to surrender its secrets." "But the truth about Gaddafi's murderous regime lies with the still living." "The people who committed these crimes against humanity, and who, in the end, will have to account for what they did."