Straw under pressure over Belhadj rendition Cori Crider, legal director of the legal charity Reprieve, said: "Jack Straw once described UK involvement in rendition as a "conspiracy theory." Now it appears he may have played a central role in signing off this shameful practice. Along with MI6 he must now come clean and give Mr Belhadj the apology he deserves. Asked about Britain's rendition policy during last autumn, Mr Straw said: "The position of successive foreign secretaries, including me, is that we were opposed to unlawful rendition, opposed to torture or similar methods and not only did we not agree with it, we were not complicit in it, nor did we turn a blind eye to it." It is understood MI6 officers met with Mr Straw shortly after where "they reminded him that he had signed off on it. He was shown evidence and (then) he did accept that he had signed off on the rendition," according to one source. Security sources have insisted such a decision would have to be signed off at a senior political level. Mr Belhadj, a former member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which has been linked to al-Qaeda, is suing the British government and MI6. Now a senior figure in the Libyan transitional government, he was living in exile in Beijing in 2004 when he says he was tortured after being detained with his wife en route to the UK where they were trying to seek asylum. The civil action stems from the discovery of a letter purportedly from Sir Mark Allen, the former MI6 director of counter - terrorism, to Musa Kusa, the head of Col Muammar Gaddafi's intelligence agency, dated March 18, 2004. It is alleged Mr Allen told Mr Kusa that "the intelligence was British," adding that the tip-off about Belhadj's movements was "the least we could do for you and for Libya." Sir Malcolm Rifkind, chairman of the commons Intelligence and Security Committee, said his committee planned to resume their own investigation of the Belhadj case once the police inquiry was completed.