A Libyan rebel commander who fought to oust Col. Moammar Gaddafi is suing the British government for its complicity in his torture by American and Libyan military interrogators in 2004.

Abdul Hakim Belhadj has filed the lawsuit against the British intelligence agency MI6 through the law firm Leigh Day & Co. and with the help of legal charity Reprieve. He is demanding an apology from the British government for the torture he and his wife suffered and a clarification that he and his anti-Gaddafi group Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) has no links with the terrorist group al-Qaeda.

Belhadj is also demanding the investigation of the MI6 for facilitating his rendition.

Based on his accounts, Belhadj and his wife, Fatima Bouchar, were living in China in 2004, when they tried to fly to Britain via Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to seek political asylum. He claims that the MI6 tipped them off to CIA and Libyan agents, who seized them while their flight to London made a stopover in Bangkok, Thailand.

The couple were transferred to a CIA aircraft and flown back to Libya with a stopover in the British Indian Ocean Territory of Diego Garcia. In Tripoli, his torture started with Libyan security agents beating him up, depriving him of sleep, hanging him from walls and cutting off communication with his family.

Balhadj claimed he was put in a tiny cell and not allowed to bathe for three years and see the sun for a year.

At the Tajoura prison, he claimed that British agents were among foreign agents who interrogated him. He was tried and sentenced to death for insurrection. He was transferred to the notorious Abu Salim prison. To avoid execution, he and other members of the LIFG agreed to join the reconciliation program of Gaddafi's son Saif al Islam. In March 2010, he was released from prison.

A spokesman from Britain's foreign office denied that the British government conducts torture nor allows other parties to torture people on its behalf. The spokesman also said that the government has established a Detainee Inquiry that looks into complaints of Britain's involvement in renditions of suspected terrorists.

Abdul Hakim Belhadj.