The former leader of a proscribed Libyan group has won a legal bid to sue the British security services over his attempted deportation to Libya.
Ismail Kamoka, 51, was jailed in 2007 for sending cash and false passports to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).
The LIFG has been linked to Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi’s father, as well as the father of Manchester man, Mohammed Abdallah, who last week was convicted of joining ISIS.
The British Government considered the group, which was set up to depose reviled dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, a “risk to the national security of the United Kingdom.”
Kamoka, who now works at the Libyan embassy in London, has won a victory at the High Court after a judge ruled that he and four other Libyans can sue the MI5 and the MI6 for their unlawful detention, and the unlawful use of counter-terrorism control orders while the Home Office tried to secure their deportation, reports the Sunday Telegraph.
The Libyans argue secret documents discovered after Gaddafi was overthrown show their detention and national security assessments were based on evidence obtained from torture.
They could be set for pay-outs worth hundreds of thousands of pounds in damages and legal costs, and the UK government has already paid out £2 million to a member of the LIFG.
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The claimants have accused the MI6 of their rendition during Gaddafi’s reign.
Kamoka works in a freelance capacity at the Libyan embassy in Kensington, west London, at the cultural affairs department.
The recognised government in Tripoli is backed by a variety of militias and political organisations that came to prominence in 2011.
After 9/11, the UK government formed an increasingly close relationship with the Gaddafi regime.
It was only in October 2005, during the rapprochement with Libya, that the LIFG was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in the United Kingdom.
