Profile: Libyan rebel commander Abdel Hakim Belhaj

Abdel Hakim Belhaj is a rising star in Tripoli's rebel leadership, but his past ties to jihadi groups have sparked controversy - along with his claims of being tortured at the behest of US and British intelligence agencies under the programme known as rendition.

    As leader of the newly-formed Tripoli Military Council, Abdel Hakim Belhaj is arguably the most powerful military man in Tripoli.
He stood victorious inside Col Muammar Gaddafi's Bab al-Aziziya compound last month, after fighters from his Tripoli Brigade broke through the defences of the ousted leader's fortress in the heart of the Libyan capital.
"The tyrant has fled and we will be after him," said Mr Belhaj, 45.
Islamist days The defeat was a long-time coming for the staunch anti-Gaddafi opposition fighter, who was involved with an Islamist group's attempt to overthrow the Libyan leader in the late 1990s.

Mr Belhaj - known in the jihadi world as Abu Abdullah al-Sadiq - commanded the now defunct Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG).

The group was formed in 1990 by Mr Belhaj and other Islamist Libyans who had fought in Afghanistan against the Soviets in the 1980s. It went public in 1995, with the stated aim of overthrowing Col Gaddafi.
The LIFG waged a three-year low-level insurgency mainly based in eastern Libya, and staged three attempts to assassinate Col Gaddafi in 1995 and 1996, according to Middle East analyst Omar Ashour of Exeter University.
The group has historical links to al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Egypt's Islamic Jihad organisation, says Prof Ashour.
By 1998, the group was crushed. Most of its leaders fled to Afghanistan and joined forces with the Taliban.
After the 11 September attacks and the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, he and most of the LIFG leaders fled that country as well, only for Mr Belhaj to be arrested in 2004 in Thailand by the CIA and then handed over to Col Gaddafi's regime.
Mr Belhaj spent time in Tripoli's notorious Abu Selim Prison, before being freed in 2010 under a "de-radicalisation" drive championed by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the Libyan leader.
CIA rendition His latest incarnation as the top Libyan rebel commander, widely credited with chasing the Gaddafi family out of Tripoli, has propelled him to international attention - along with his extraordinary account of being tortured under the controversial CIA interrogation programme known as rendition.
Files unearthed from Col Gaddafi's intelligence archives and seen by the BBC document Mr Belhaj's capture by the CIA in Bangkok in 2004, and his forcible repatriation to Libya.

Abdulhakim Belhaj told the BBC what happened to him was illegal and he wants an apology

Peter Bouckaert, a spokesman for Human Rights Watch - which originally obtained the documents - explained the circumstances of Mr Belhaj's transfer.

Abdel Hakim Belhaj

"He was rendered by the CIA, he was captured, abducted together with his pregnant wife and flown on the so-called black flight to Tripoli for his interrogation," he said.

Mr Bouckaert said Mr Belhaj was one of about eight or nine suspects who was abducted and handed over to the Libyan intelligence service.
"From the files it's very clear [CIA agents] were present in some of the interrogations themselves."
Mr Belhaj was held in Tripoli's notorious Abu Selim prison for seven years, where he says he was "regularly tortured".
"I was injected with something, hung from a wall by my arms and legs and put in a container surrounded by ice," he told the Guardian newspaper. "They did not let me sleep and there was noise all the time."
Mr Belhaj told the BBC that after the CIA and MI6 got him to Tripoli in March 2004, they did not witness his torture, but interrogated him afterwards.
"What happened to me was illegal and deserves an apology," he told the BBC's Jeremy Bowen in Tripoli.
The CIA says it should come as no surprise that the US works with foreign governments to help protect America from terrorists.
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the accusations related to the previous government, and that Britain was now focused on the future of Libya.
Moderate tone For his part, Mr Belhaj has said that the revelations would not stop Libya's new rebel leadership - the National Transitional Council - from having "orderly relations" with the US and Britain.
The NTC has dismissed any suggestions that Abdel Hakim Belhaj is a former al-Qaeda sympathiser, following reports in the international media as well as statements attributed to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi himself.
"NTC members have stated time and again that the revolution has no links to al-Qaeda," said NTC spokesman Al-Amin Belhaj told al-Jazeera Television.
"Everyone knows who Abdel Hakim Belhaj is. He is a Libyan rebel and a moderate person who commands wide respect. Unfortunately, some circles in the West repeat these claims," he added.
Asked about his Islamist links, Mr Belhaj told the BBC that he was always an anti-Gaddafi fighter, but insisted that he was never an al-Qaeda member.
According to Arabic press reports, Mr Belhaj was born in 1966 and holds a civil engineering degree. He is reported to have two wives, one Moroccan and one Sudanese.

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