The South African intelligence services are investigating the role of a British company in a mission to help Colonel Gaddafi flee from Libya which ended in his capture and death.
A British company may have been involved in a mission to help Colonel Gaddafi flee from Libya
By Aislinn Laing, Peta Thornycroft in Johannesburg and Damien McElroy 9:30PM GMT 03 Nov 2011
According to a senior intelligence source, both the British firm and a woman in Kenya who is thought to have recruited South African mercenaries on its behalf are "of interest" in their investigation.
It has been alleged that one of the security firms who provided mercenaries for the mission may have acted as a “double agent”, helping Nato to pinpoint Gaddafi’s convoy for attack, and that the dictator’s escape was “meant to fail”.
The affair risks further straining relations between London and Pretoria. President Jacob Zuma repeatedly clashed with the West over its involvement in Libya, at one stage accusing it of pursuing “illegal regime change”.
A total of 50 private soldiers, including 19 South Africans, are reported to have travelled to Libya on instructions to smuggle the former dictator from his birthplace of Sirte over the border to Niger.
Among them were said to be members of the team led by former SAS officer Simon Mann on the “Wonga coup” to unseat Equatorial Guinea’s dictator.
As the convoy left Sirte, they were targeted by Nato drones and Col Gaddafi was captured. He was later killed by soldiers fighting for the National Transitional Council now in control of Libya.
Danie Odendaal, a former policeman in the South African security services who claims he was involved in the Libya mission, said he arrived in the city days before, believing that he would escort the dictator into exile with the tacit permission of Nato.
“We all believed they wanted him out of Libya,” he told the Afrikaans newspaper Rapport.
He alleges he saw correspondence between his recruiters and Col Gaddafi, in which the Colonel said he wanted to settle in a warm, desert-like region of South Africa, preferably in a tent.
Instead, Mr Odendaal said, the mission was “a huge failure” and two South Africans were killed along with Col Gaddafi while others were injured.
“It was a disgusting, disgusting orgy,” Mr Odendaal said, adding of Col Gaddafi’s last moments: “The poor thing screamed like a pig.”
Mr Odendaal and other security experts have suggested a firm who took the Gaddafi contract “sold us out” to Nato.
A source in the private security sector said it was “highly likely” that one of those involved deliberately recruited mercenaries who were ill-equipped to handle the mission.
“These guys did not have the experience to be successful,” he said. “The formation of the convoy, the way they tried to leave Sirte, it’s clear they were meant to fail.
“Someone got paid to protect him and at the same time to deliver him.”
He said his firm was approached by a South African firm to provide support and insurance to the Libyan group but refused.
“These guys were going against UN sanctions and there is no way we would support that,” he said.
Chris Greyling, of the of the Pan-African Security Association, said the consequences for anyone found to have been involved would be dire.
“If it turns out that a major, established firm was involved in mercenary activities, supporting an outlawed government in defiance of Nato then it could be devastating for them,” he said.
Source: The Telegraph UK
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