Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Abdul Hakim Belhaj: "I hope that it is a new page in history"

The UK government has apologised to a Libyan dissident and his wife after its actions contributed to their detention, transfer to Libya and his torture by Colonel Gaddafi's forces in 2004.

Prime Minister Theresa May said Abdul Hakim Belhaj and Fatima Boudchar had suffered "appalling treatment".

Ms Boudchar, who was pregnant at the time, has accepted Mrs May's apology and will receive a £500,000 payout.

The couple say an MI6 tip-off helped the US kidnap them in Thailand.

Mr Belhaj was taken to Tripoli and says he was tortured by his Libyan jailers during a six-year spell in prison. Ms Boudchar was also detained but was released shortly before giving birth.

Speaking to BBC News, he said the apology should serve as a "lesson" to governments not to repeat the couple's rendition.

"I hope that it is a new page in history, that we guarantee and strengthen human rights and this practice is not repeated which violated mine and my wife's rights."

Mr Belhaj added the six years the family waited for this was "an extension of the suffering for my family" on top of the years he was held captive.

In a letter read out in the Commons, Mrs May said UK actions had contributed to the couple's capture and that the government had "shared information" about them with "international partners".

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Fatima Boudchar: "This is a historic day for us"

The letter said: "It is clear that you were both subjected to appalling treatment and that you suffered greatly, not least to the dignity of Mrs Boudchar, who was pregnant at the time.

"The UK government believes your accounts. Neither of you should have been treated this way. The UK government's actions contributed to your detention, rendition and suffering. The UK government shared information about you with its international partners."

Mrs May said the UK "should have done more to reduce the risk" of the pair being mistreated, adding: "We accept this was a failing on our part. On behalf of Her Majesty's government, I apologise unreservedly."

Ms Boudchar, who travelled to the UK with her son Abderrahim to hear the statement in Parliament, described the day's events as "historic" and called on world leaders to show solidarity for those who have suffered injustice "even if they're of different religion or culture".

The documents that forced the UK to apologise

By Dominic Casciani

The settlement is the first time ministers have apologised for a specific act involving British security agencies.

Papers discovered in Tripoli, Libya - during the fall of the dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 - included evidence of how MI6 and the CIA had groomed Gaddafi and his regime to come in from the cold.

The UK's plan was to convince Gaddafi to not only stop threatening the West, but to also provide intelligence on Libyan dissidents and their potential links to al-Qaeda.

Details of secret conferences and documents referring to Mr Belhaj have emerged and help illustrate how the rendition case developed.

Read more from Dominic

'Humane' treatment assurances

Attorney General Jeremy Wright, who read out Mrs May's letter, said Mr Belhaj had not sought and would not receive financial compensation.

However, friends of the couple said the UK had agreed to pay Mr Belhaj and Ms Boudchar's "substantial" legal fees.

Jack Straw, foreign secretary at the time of the rendition case, issued a statement in which he said he had "sought to act at all times in a manner which was fully consistent with my legal duties, and with national and international law".

He said it had been part of his role to approve "a wide range of matters to protect our national security" including the sharing of information with international partners.

This included getting assurances that those concerned were being treated humanely, he said.

Who is Abdul Hakim Belhaj?

Image copyright AFP Image caption Abdul Hakim Belhaj led an Islamic group fighting against the Libyan government

Mr Belhaj was born in 1966 in the Souq al-Jumaa area of Tripoli and studied at al-Fateh University, where press reports say he earned a civil engineering degree.

He became an opponent of Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi and commanded the now defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group which staged a low-level insurgency war and attempted to assassinate Col Gaddafi three times.

He fled the country in 2001 but was three years later abducted in Bangkok - along with his wife, then five-months pregnant - while attempting to fly to London to claim asylum in the UK.

Mr Belhaj is now a politician in Libya.</s>LONDON - Britain has apologised to Libyan former rebel Abdul Hakim Belhadj and his wife Fatima Boudchar over the role of British spies in their 2004 rendition from Thailand to Libya, where Belhadj was then tortured by Muammar Gaddafi’s henchmen.

Belhadj, who was a known opponent of Gaddafi’s regime, and his pregnant wife were abducted by US CIA agents in Thailand and then illegally transferred to Tripoli with the help of British spies.

“The UK government believes your accounts. Neither of you should have been treated in this way,” Prime Minister Theresa May wrote to the couple in a letter made public on Thursday.

“The UK government’s actions contributed to your detention, rendition and suffering ... On behalf of Her Majesty’s Government, I apologise unreservedly,” May wrote.

Boudchar, who after her rendition was detained in Libya until shortly before giving birth, was in the public gallery in parliament in London with her son to hear Britain’s attorney general make a statement about the case.

In a written statement sent by his lawyers shortly after the announcement, Belhadj thanked May for her apology.

“Today is a historic day, not just for myself and my wife,” he said. “A great society does not torture, does not help others to torture, and when it makes mistakes it accepts them and apologises.”

Belhadj and Boudchar had brought legal claims against Britain’s former foreign affairs minister, a senior intelligence chief and various government departments and agencies, seeking an apology and symbolic damages.

The British government tried to fight the claims in court, but the Supreme Court last year gave the couple the right to sue the defendants.

Attorney General Jeremy Wright told parliament all the claims had now been withdrawn as part of a full and final out-of-court settlement.

As part of that settlement, the government agreed to give Boudchar £500,000 in compensation for her suffering. Wright said no admissions of liability had been made by any of the defendants in the legal claims.

Belhadj, who had said all along he was seeking justice and an apology rather than a financial settlement was detained for six years after being rendered to Libya.

He later went on to command an Islamist rebel group that helped topple Gaddafi in 2011 and is now a politician.

Under the administration of former President George W Bush, the CIA practised so-called “extraordinary renditions”, or extra-judicial transfers of suspects from one country to another, in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks. Other nations are alleged to have lent assistance in some cases.

The practice has been widely denounced around the world.

Belhadj says he was originally detained in China, before being transferred to Malaysia and then moved to a CIA “black site” in Thailand.

He was handed over to CIA agents, acting on a tip-off from MI6, and flown via the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean to Tripoli, because at the time Britain and the United States were keen to build relations with Gaddafi.</s>The UK has apologised for contributing to the ill-treatment of Libyan dissident Abdel Hakim Belhaj, who was kidnapped in Thailand in 2004, transferred to Libya and tortured.

Belhaj - who was seized with his then-pregnant wife Fatima Boudchar and four children while on their way to the UK - has said that a tip-off from MI6, the British foreign intelligence agency, led to their capture.

"The UK government's actions contributed to your detention, rendition and suffering ... On behalf of Her Majesty's government, I apologise to you unreservedly," Theresa May, Britain's prime minister, said in a letter to Belhaj and his wife Fatima Boudchar, which was read out in parliament on Thursday by Jeremy Wright, the attorney general.

Wright said the settlement with the couple included a £500,000 payment to Boudchar.

Speaking in Istanbul, Turkey, after the settlement was announced, Belhaj said: "I welcome and accept the prime minister's apology, and I extend to her and the attorney general my thanks and goodwill.

"For more than six years I have made clear that I had a single goal in bringing this case: justice. Now, at last, justice has been done.

"Britain has made a wrong right today, and set an example for other nations to follow."

Belhaj's case, and that of another Libyan dissident Sami al-Saadi, whose family was also abducted and rendered to Libya, had been investigated by British police who accumulated nearly 30,000 pages of evidence over a five-year period.

While the Saadi family received a £2m ($2.5m) settlement two years ago, Belhaj insisted he only wanted an apology and a symbolic £1 ($1.24) payment from each of the defendants.

Following the announcement, which Boudchar attended with her son in London, she thanked the British government for their apology.

"I thank the British government for its apology ... I accept the government's apology," Boudchar said.

"By today's settlement, I look forward to rebuilding my life with dignity and honour, and living free from the weight of these events with my husband and our five beautiful children."

For Cori Crider, a lawyer and the strategic director of Reprieve's Abuses in Counter-Terrorism Team, who has been working as a lawyer and counsel to the family for many years, the settlement is a victory.

"This is not just Abdul-Hakim and Fatima's victory. It is a victory for everyone who opposes injustice, secret detention, and torture," said Crider in a written statement following the announcement.

"Britain lost its way when it got mixed up in rendition, but today, by apologising for its part in that dark story, the UK has stood on the right side of history."

A former fighter with the anti-Gaddafi Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), Belhaj was imprisoned in Libya for six years after his capture.

During that time he says he was routinely tortured and mistreated.

The case came to light after the fall of Tripoli in 2011, when faxes from Mark Allen, MI6's then-counterterrorism director, describing the rendition flights were found in the ransacked office of Moussa Koussa, Libya's head of intelligence.

The US deemed the anti-Gaddafi LIFG to be a "terrorist" group allied with al-Qaeda.

Belhaj denied that any links between the group and al-Qaeda existed and said he believed his rendition to Libya was part of a covert deal between former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi, who was overthrown and killed in a popular uprising in 2011.

Belhaj and Saadi were released from jail in Tripoli in 2010 under a reconciliation deal arranged by Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam.

British officials, including Jack Straw, then the foreign secretary and responsible for MI6, repeatedly denied that they had anything to do with the rendering of "terror" suspects, a practice more widely undertaken by the CIA.

However, in 2011, documents revealed when NATO aircraft destroyed the Tripoli offices of Gaddafi's intelligence chief, Moussa Koussa, implicated the UK government.

In a letter to Koussa, dated 18 March 2004, Mark Allen, MI6's counterterrorism chief, congratulated him on Belhaj's "safe arrival" in Tripoli, adding that British involvement in the operation was "the least we could do for you and for Libya to demonstrate the remarkable relationship we have built over the years".</s>Fatima Boudchar, wife of Libyan politician Hakim Belhadj, stands with their son Abderrahim, as she holds a letter of apology from Prime Minister Theresa May outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster, London, Britain, May 10, 2018. © 2018 REUTERS/Hannah McKay Today, the British government apologized unreservedly to Abdul-Hakim Belhaj and Fatima Boudchar for the UK’s role in the “harrowing experiences” and “mistreatment” they suffered during their March 2004 rendition by the CIA to Libya.

Boudchar, who was pregnant, was released from detention four months later, weeks before she gave birth, while Belhaj, the former leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, was not released until 2010.

The role that the UK’s overseas intelligence agency, MI6, played in facilitating their arrest in southeast Asia and subsequent rendition by the CIA to torture and detention in Libya first came to light in a trove of documents discovered by Human Rights Watch in Tripoli in September 2011, and later documented in exhaustive detail.

In one of the documents, a British official appears to take credit for the transfer of Belhaj, noting: “This was the least we could do for you […]to demonstrate the remarkable relationship we have built over recent years…The intelligence…was British.”

It is notable that the prime minister’s formal apology never once used the word “torture.” That is regrettable, because Belhaj, Bouchar and others were tortured, after the UK had assisted in their kidnap and subsequent transfer to Libya.

But the British government apology should not mask the failure of accountability in other areas. UK prosecutors claimed that an extensive police investigation had failed to gather sufficient evidence to enable them to prosecute any UK government officials for their role in Belhaj’s torture or that of others.

The UK’s failure to deliver justice extends beyond the criminal courts. A 2013 inquiry into UK complicity in overseas torture was shelved. The issue was then taken up by the UK Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee which has yet to publish its findings. To be credible, its report will need to look at far more than the Libyan cases to establish what role the UK government and intelligence agencies played in torture by the CIA and other UK allies, rendition and secret detention more widely.

The UK’s apology, even if long overdue, stands in stark contrast to the US which has not apologized to Belhaj, Bouchar or the scores of others the CIA rendered to other governments and tortured. Just yesterday, during her nomination hearing to be Director of the CIA, Gina Haspel who ran a CIA black site in Thailand before Belhaj was held there refused even to acknowledge that the CIA Rendition, Detention and Interrogation (RDI) program was wrong.

The UK government made a clear apology today. But without concrete guarantees that those involved in torture will be prosecuted without political interference, the government has given scant comfort that such a situation will not happen again.</s>London — Britain has apologised to Libyan former rebel Abdul Hakim Belhadj and his wife Fatima Boudchar for the role of British spies in their 2004 rendition from Thailand to Libya, where Belhadj was tortured by Muammar Gaddafi’s henchmen.

Belhadj, who was a known opponent of Gaddafi’s regime, and his pregnant wife were abducted by US CIA agents in Thailand and then illegally transferred to Tripoli with the help of British spies.

"The UK government believes your accounts. Neither of you should have been treated in this way," Prime Minister Theresa May wrote to the couple in a letter.

"The UK government’s actions contributed to your detention, rendition and suffering … On behalf of Her Majesty’s Government, I apologise unreservedly," May wrote.

Boudchar, who after her rendition was detained in Libya until shortly before giving birth, was in the public gallery in parliament in London with her son to hear Britain’s attorney general make a statement about the case.

In a written statement sent by his lawyers shortly after the announcement, Belhadj thanked May for her apology.

"Today is a historic day, not just for myself and my wife," he said. "A great society does not torture, does not help others to torture, and when it makes mistakes it accepts them and apologises." Belhadj and Boudchar had brought legal claims against Britain’s former foreign affairs minister, a senior intelligence chief and various government departments and agencies, seeking an apology and symbolic damages.

The British government tried to fight the claims in court but the Supreme Court in 2017 gave the couple the right to sue the defendants.

Attorney-general Jeremy Wright told parliament all the claims had now been withdrawn as part of a full and final out-of-court settlement.

As part of that settlement, the government agreed to give Boudchar $676,000 in compensation for her suffering. Wright said no admissions of liability had been made by any of the defendants. Belhadj, who had said all along he was seeking justice and an apology rather than a financial settlement, was detained for six years after being rendered to Libya.

He later went on to command an Islamist rebel group that helped topple Gaddafi in 2011, and is now a politician.</s>Theresa May has apologised on behalf of the Government for the UK's role in a Libyan couple's prison ordeal.

A "full and final settlement" has also been reached with Abdul Hakim Belhaj and his wife Fatima Boudchar over their kidnap and rendition to the Middle Eastern nation in 2004.

In a statement on Thursday, Attorney General Jeremy Wright told the House of Commons that the Prime Minister had written to the couple over their "appalling" treatment.

A dissident of former dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Belhaj, 52, spent six years in a Libyan prison, where he was tortured having been kidnapped during a flight to the UK from Malaysia via Bangkok.

Following the fall of Gaddafi, it was exposed that the UK had tipped off Libyan authorities that the couple were in south Asia.

The rendition was also linked to an M16-CIA operation and Tony Blair's infamous "deal in the desert" with Gaddafi.</s>The UK government has apologised to former Libyan dissident Abdul Hakim Belhaj and his wife Fatima Boudchar who were abducted with assistance from Britain's security services.

The couple say an MI6 tip-off helped the US kidnap them in Thailand from where they were transferred to Libya and Mr Belhaj was tortured.

Britain's unprecedented apology in the Belhaj case comes after allegations of rendition and torture relating to UK security services. Here is the background to the claims.

What is the key allegation that has been levelled at the British security services?

Collusion in ill-treatment and torture. In the aftermath of 9/11, the US and others invaded Afghanistan in an attempt to crush al-Qaeda. The British government was among those aiding the US mission. Some of the individuals seized by the Americans - or sometimes by the security forces of other countries - had connections to the UK.

The UK's two security agencies, MI5 and MI6, were battling to grasp the extent of the threat posed by al-Qaeda and knew some detainees held abroad had the key to plots at home. That meant British officers needed to interview anyone who had a connection to the UK or alternatively to gather information from foreign security agencies interrogating detainees.

So what's that to do with allegations of collusion?

In the years that followed, it emerged that some of the detainees held in foreign prisons had been abused or tortured. The question was whether British officials aided and abetted that abuse or, at the least, had been told what was going on and did nothing to intervene. If the UK did not intervene, was that a crime?

The most well-known case was Binyam Mohamed.

Mr Mohamed, a resident of the UK, was detained in Pakistan in 2002 and handed over to US authorities. The then terrorism suspect was moved to Morocco and Afghanistan before being detained at Guantanamo Bay. Mr Mohamed says that he was abused in Pakistan and tortured in Morocco. When he was finally released from Guantanamo Bay to returned to the UK. He was never charged with a crime.

The Court of Appeal in London eventually ordered the release of information showing the US had indeed told the UK that the detainee had been subjected to "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment".

Did the UK get directly involved in arrangements to hand suspects over to governments known to torture?

In the legal jargon, this is called "rendition" but, if it's illegal, it amounts to abduction. Arguably the most serious case is that of Libyan Abdul Hakim Belhaj and his wife, Fatima Boudchar. Mr Belhaj was a leader of an armed Islamist group dedicated to the overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi.

When the dictator crushed the group in the late 1990s, its leadership scattered - some of them throwing their lot in with al-Qaeda, the Taliban or other jihadist organisations.

The UK government has apologised to Mr Belhaj and his wife and accepted the couple's account, which says MI6 provided key intelligence in 2004 on his movements which ultimately led to his capture and rendition by the US to Libya.

Mr Belhaj spent six years in prison and was tortured. His then pregnant wife was only released days before she gave birth.

The links to the UK government emerged following Gaddafi's 2011 fall after investigators from Human Rights Watch raided his intelligence HQ and discovered documents that pointed the finger at British officials.

What does the law say about torture?

Torture has been banned for centuries under English law, a position backed by international convention. The UK also has a long-standing prohibition on lesser forms of abuse, relating to interrogation practices that were outlawed during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Did British officials torture or abuse anyone?

There are no allegations that British officials broke the law in this way. The allegation has always been that some either turned a blind eye or did not do enough to stop foreign security agencies abusing detainees.

So were they complicit?

In a letter read out in the Commons relating to the Belhaj case, Theresa May said UK actions had contributed to the couple's capture and that the government had "shared information" about them with "international partners".

While the government's apology maintains a denial of legal liability, the settlement leaves questions unanswered about how much others in government were involved in what happened.

The prime minister said: "Later, during your [Mr Belhaj's] detention in Libya, we sought information about and from you. We wrongly missed opportunities to alleviate your plight: this should not have happened."

In another case, the UK in 2012 agreed to pay £2.2m to Libyan dissident, Sami al-Saadi and his family who said MI6 was involved in their illegal rendition.

And in another string of cases brought by British men held at Guantanamo Bay, the government settled for millions of pounds. That meant their cases were never fully examined.

Ministers promised to hold a major public inquiry into the allegations - but they scrapped that after detectives began investigating the allegations made by Abdul Hakim Belhaj and another Libyan dissident.

Separately, Parliament passed a law allowing courts to hold secret sessions to examine evidence of wrongdoing involving MI5 and MI6. That means the government can now, if it so wishes, defend its position in private, without having to reveal in public what, if anything, happened.

Did the inquiry reach any findings before it was closed down?

Sir Peter Gibson, the retired judge chairing the inquiry, said in his closing report that there was indeed evidence that the UK "may have been inappropriately involved in some renditions" and this "very serious matter" needed to be properly investigated.

Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee is continuing that work in secret.

What happened to the police investigation ?

After four years - and reportedly examining 28,000 pages of documents - the CPS decided last June there was insufficient evidence to prosecute anyone from MI6 in relation to the Libya claims. Prosecutors had previously ruled out prosecuting anyone in relation to the ill-treatment of Binyam Mohamed.</s>The British government has made an unprecedented apology to a former Libyan dissident and his wife who were abducted with crucial assistance from MI6.

Abdul Hakim Belhaj said MI6 helped the US seize him in Thailand in 2004 to return him and his Moroccan wife, Fatima Boudchar, to Libya, where he says he was tortured.

The government has accepted the couple's account of what happened - and the settlement is the first time ministers have apologised for a specific act involving British security agencies.

The legal battle came about because documents discovered in Tripoli, Libya - during the fall of the dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 - revealed how MI6 became involved in the couple's rendition.

While the government's apology maintains a denial of legal liability, the settlement leaves questions unanswered about how much others in government were involved in what happened.

This is how the affair developed.

In the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001, the US and its allies were in a race to understand jihadist groups they had previously not done enough to track.

British intelligence agencies wanted to know more about Libyan dissidents who had been living under UK protection - mostly families linked to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

The group had attempted armed overthrows of Gaddafi's regime in the 1990s and its defeated leaders had scattered around the world.

The UK's plan was to convince Colonel Gaddafi to not only stop threatening the West, but to also provide intelligence on these LIFG members and their potential links to al-Qaeda.

In September 2011, a team from Human Rights Watch raided the abandoned headquarters of Libyan's External Security Organisation (ESO) after the dictator's eventual downfall - and the documents they found made jaws drop.

The papers included evidence of how MI6 and the CIA had groomed Gaddafi and his henchmen to come in from the cold - and one senior MI6 officer, Sir Mark Allen, was at the centre of the operation.

From 2001 he sought to convince Moussa Koussa - his Libyan counterpart and a man who had been widely accused of torture and other human rights abuses - to work with the West.

Mr Koussa wanted two things: international recognition and respect for Gaddafi - and intelligence leading to the capture of LIFG leaders on the run.

The Tripoli documents show the pair met on 20 September 2001 and agreed that each country's counter-terrorism teams should work together against common enemies.

MI6 asked if the Libyans would help operations to penetrate jihadist groups.

The next document - from the British side - is the first that referred to Mr Belhaj, albeit through one of his aliases and, confusingly, apparently mixing up some of his details with another dissident who was also later abducted.

A later secret conference, also including the German and Austrian intelligence services, was detailed in a memo circulated among ESO chiefs.

It said that the British and others were "willing to co-operate" - but the UK had stressed that any co-operation on tracking down what the Libyans called "heretics" would need to be lawful.

The MI6 team promised to help the Libyans and began suggesting they had information that could be useful.

The breakthrough in relations appears to have come in 2002 when Sir Mark finally convinced Libya to work properly with the UK - leading to the then Foreign Office minister Mike O'Brien visiting the country in August.

Later that year, the Libyans came to London and, according to their records, attended a "banquet dinner" hosted by MI6 at the £500-a-night Goring Hotel.

The agency was pressing for more - telling the Libyans they had to move faster and further in co-operating with the West if they were going to get the recognition they sought.

All of this diplomacy ultimately led to what became known as the 2004 "deal in the desert" - in which Prime Minister Tony Blair sealed what looked like a remarkable turnaround in Colonel Gaddafi's attitude.

But it came at a price. And that price was, according to the documents at least, the UK's willingness to provide information on the whereabouts of the regime's enemies.

In June 2003, the ESO received a memo from the British setting out the extent of operations to date.

Another document contained the first proof that the UK was apparently willing to provide information on what it knew about Mr Belhaj.

The agencies thought he was in China - and initially MI6 didn't confirm that to the Libyans.

But in November, a new communication to Tripoli confirmed the British had "embarked on a project" relating to the dissident:

By the end of 2003, the UK was pretty confident the Libyan's were co-operating and on the road to a comprehensive weapons deal.

On Christmas Eve of that year, Sir Mark sent a memo to Mr Koussa, thanking him for his efforts:

The UK and US were confident they were getting a deal - and it was now time for the UK to settle the intelligence bill.

On 1 March, London told Tripoli that Mr Belhaj, travelling under a pseudonym, had been apprehended by the Chinese authorities as he tried to board a flight to London with his wife, Fatima Boudchar, who was four months pregnant.

The couple were deported to Malaysia and were being held in detention:

Libya fired off a series of urgent requests to Malaysia's government, requesting that it handed over the "dangerous" dissident who it considered "the prince of the LIFG".

The US intervened and told Tripoli it was going to help secure Mr Belhaj and bring him to Libya - providing that it would get a chance to interrogate him once he was behind bars.

On 6 March, the plan was in place.

Malaysian authorities put Mr Belhaj and Mrs Boudchar on a flight to Bangkok where, instead of being transferred onto a connection for London, the Thai authorities detained them and, according to their lawyers, they were tortured.

The following day, a US rendition flight team picked up the pair and flew them to Tripoli.

On 18 March, Sir Mark sent this congratulatory message to Mr Koussa - making clear that he believed the capture was down to the British alone:

Mr Belhaj, one of Gaddafi's greatest enemies, was tortured over six years and given a death sentence, which was never carried out.

His wife was released before she gave birth - and the son she was carrying at the time was in the House of Commons to hear the historic apology from the UK.

Attorney General Jeremy Wright said the settlement with the couple included a £500,000 payment to Ms Boudchar.

"It is clear that you were both subjected to appalling treatment and that you suffered greatly," Theresa May said in a letter to the pair.

"We should have done more to reduce the risk that you would be mistreated," she added. "We accept this was a failing on our part."

Sir Mark Allen has never spoken publicly about the affair. He, along with former foreign secretary Jack Straw, and all the agencies involved, denied individual wrongdoing.</s>LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has apologised to a Libyan former rebel and his wife over the role of British spies in their 2004 rendition to Libya, where they were detained and the husband was tortured by Muammar Gaddafi’s henchmen.

Abdul Hakim Belhadj, a known opponent of Gaddafi’s regime, and his pregnant wife Fatima Boudchar were abducted by CIA agents in Thailand after a tip-off from British spies, then illegally transferred to Tripoli.

“It is clear that you were both subjected to appalling treatment and that you suffered greatly, not least the affront to the dignity of Ms Boudchar who was pregnant at the time,” Prime Minister Theresa May wrote in a letter to the couple made public on Thursday.

At the time, Britain and the United States were trying to mend relations with Gaddafi’s Libya for geopolitical reasons, after years during which the Tripoli regime had been an international pariah.

Belhadj was hooded and shackled to the floor of the airplane in a stress position during his 17-hour flight back to Libya, where he was then detained for six years in brutal jails. Boudchar was detained for four months and released three weeks before giving birth.

She was in the public gallery in parliament in London with her son on Thursday to hear a public statement about the case, during which May’s letter of apology was read out in full by Britain’s attorney general.

“The UK government believes your accounts. Neither of you should have been treated in this way,” the letter said.

“The UK government’s actions contributed to your detention, rendition and suffering ... On behalf of Her Majesty’s Government, I apologise unreservedly.

“We should have understood much sooner the unacceptable practices of some of our international partners.”

Under the administration of former President George W. Bush, the CIA practised so-called “extraordinary renditions”, or extra-judicial transfers of people from one country to another, in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Other nations are alleged to have lent assistance in some cases.

The practice has been widely denounced around the world.

The British role in the rendition of Belhadj and Boudchar came to light after documents were discovered in the headquarters of the Gaddafi regime’s intelligence agency after the dictator was toppled in a 2011 revolution.

The documents included a fax apparently sent by MI6, Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, to the Libyan intelligence services in March 2004, giving information about the couple’s then whereabouts in Malaysia.

In written statements sent by their lawyers shortly after the apology was made public, Belhadj and Boudchar thanked the British government.

“A great society does not torture, does not help others to torture, and when it makes mistakes it accepts them and apologises,” Belhadj said.

The couple had brought legal claims against Britain’s former foreign affairs minister, a senior intelligence chief and various government departments and agencies, seeking an apology and symbolic damages.

The British government tried to fight the claims in court but the Supreme Court last year gave the couple the right to sue the defendants.

Attorney General Jeremy Wright told parliament all the claims had now been withdrawn as part of a full and final out-of-court settlement.

As part of that settlement, the government agreed to give Boudchar 500,000 pounds ($676,000) in compensation for her suffering. Belhadj, who had said all along he was seeking an apology rather than money, did not receive a financial settlement.

Wright said no admissions of liability had been made by any of the defendants in the legal claims.

After his release, Belhadj went on to command an Islamist rebel group that helped topple Gaddafi in 2011. He is now a politician in Libya.</s>Britain on Thursday apologised for contributing to the ill treatment of former Islamist fighter turned politician Abdel Hakim Belhaj, who was kidnapped in Thailand in 2004, handed over to Libya and tortured.

“The UK government’s actions contributed to your detention, rendition and suffering,” Prime Minister Theresa May said in a letter to Belhaj and his wife Fatima Boudchar, which was read out in parliament by Attorney General Jeremy Wright.

“On behalf of Her Majesty’s government, I apologise to you unreservedly,” the letter read.

Belhaj, who became Tripoli’s military commander after Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi was ousted in the 2011 revolution, claimed British complicity in their capture by the CIA and subsequent torture by his regime.

The British government accepted the couple “were subjected to a harrowing ordeal which caused them significant distress”, and said that it had reached “a full and final settlement” with them both.

Boudchar will receive £500,000 (570,000 euros, $670,000) compensation, but Belhaj did not seek any financial settlement, only an apology.

Boudchar was four-and-a-half months pregnant when she was kidnapped, telling the Guardian that she had been taped to a stretcher for the 17-hour flight to Tripoli.

Belhaj was held for more than six years and said he was subjected to torture.

“Your accounts were moving and what happened to you is deeply troubling,” wrote May.

“The UK government believes your account, neither of you should have been treated in this way”.

The prime minister added that “we should have understood sooner the unacceptable practices of some of our international partners. We sincerely regret our failures.”

Papers found after Kadhafi’s ouster showed the British official had told the Libyan government that it was “the least the UK could do” to help capture Belhaj.

He also sued ex-foreign secretary Jack Straw, but dropped both of the cases as he mediated a “full and final settlement” with the government.

Belhaj fought against Soviet forces in Afghanistan and became the leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), which sought to overthrow Kadhafi and replace his regime with an Islamic one.

He also founded a pro-Islamist television channel, which was also opposed to Khalifa Haftar, the head of the Libyan National Army.

He had an office in Tripoli where he regularly received US, British, French and other Western envoys.

Belhaj and his men were part of the Fajr Libya faction which seized Tripoli in 2014.

As a party leader, he participated in the talks held in Morocco which brought about Libya’s interim Government of National Accord (GNA) in December 2015.

However, he has vanished from Libyan public life since then and is now based in Istanbul.

In May 2017, pro-GNA armed groups took control of the prison where former leaders of the Kadhafi regime, including Abdallah Senoussi and Saadi Kadhafi, were being held under the control of Belhaj’s men.

The same day, the headquarters of his television channel was torched.

It was later transferred to Istanbul from where it continues to lead an anti-Haftar campaign.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May apologises to the family of Abdul Hakim Belhaj, accepting the fact that the UK's actions led to his rendition to Libya where he was tortured. Belhaj was detained in Thailand by US authorities in 2004. His wife accepts the apology and £500,000.