Documents show links between CIA, Libya spy unit (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Documents found in Tripoli detail close ties between the CIA and Libya's intelligence service and suggest the United States sent terrorism suspects for questioning in Libya despite that country's reputation for torture, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

The Times reported that the files cover the time from 2002 to 2007, when Moussa Koussa headed Libya's External Security Organization. Koussa most recently had been Libya's foreign minister but defected from now-fugitive leader Muammar Gaddafi's government and flew to Britain on March 30 amid this year's rebel uprising.

The newspaper reported that the documents -- including some English-language files concerning the CIA and Britain's MI-6 intelligence agency -- were found on Friday at the abandoned office of Libya's former spy chief by journalists and the group Human Rights Watch.

The Times said it was impossible to verify the authenticity of the documents but that their content appears to be consistent with facts known about the U.S. transfer of terrorism suspects abroad for interrogation -- a practice known as rendition -- and other known CIA practices. Renditions occurred under former President George W. Bush's administration.

It has been known that Western intelligence services began cooperating with Libya after Gaddafi abandoned his program to build unconventional weapons in 2004. But the files show cooperation with the CIA and MI-6 was more extensive than previously understood, the Times reported.

One document appears to be a proposed speech written by the Americans for Gaddafi about renouncing unconventional weapons. Other files show that MI-6 was willing to trace telephone numbers for the Libyans.

A series of communications about renditions is dated after Libya's 2004 renouncement of its weapons program. The files mention having a friendly country arrest a terrorism suspect, and then suggest aircraft would be sent to retrieve the suspect and bring him to Libya for questioning, the Times reported.

One document detailed a list of 89 questions for the Libyans to ask a terrorism suspect, the Times said.

Some documents told the Libyans to respect detainees' human rights but the Americans still turned over the suspects to a Libyan intelligence service with a long-established history of brutality, the Times said.

"The rendition program was all about handing over these significant figures related to al Qaeda so they could torture them and get the information they wanted," Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch, who studied the documents in the intelligence headquarters in downtown Tripoli, told the Times.

CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood is quoted by the Times as declining to comment specifically on the documents but saying, "It can't come as a surprise that the Central Intelligence Agency works with foreign governments to help protect our country from terrorism and other deadly threats."

The British Foreign Office told the Times: "It is the longstanding policy of the government not to comment on intelligence matters."

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NY Post reporters told to preserve documents: memos (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Rupert Murdoch's New York Post has ordered newsroom staff to keep all documents related to questionable reporting methods involving phone hacking or unlawful payments to government officials in light of the fire storm in the UK engulfing the newspaper's owner, News Corp.

The company's legal department said in a memo on Friday: "As you have undoubtedly seen, there have been press accounts of inquiries into whether employees or agents of News Corporation or its subsidiaries have (a) accessed telephone and/or other personal data of third-parties without authorization, and/or (b) made unlawful payments to government officials in order to obtain information.

"As you also know, these stem from the actions at The News of the World in London, as well as unsourced, unsubstantiated reports in one London tabloid.

"Starting today, all employees must preserve and maintain all documents and information that are related in any way to the above mentioned issues.

"Please know we are sending this notice not because any recipient has done anything improper or unlawful. However, given what has taken place in London, we believe that taking this step will help to underscore how seriously we are taking this matter."

A copy of the memo was obtained by Reuters.

NEWS EDITOR REASSURES STAFF

In a separate memo on Friday, the New York Post's Editor-in-Chief, Colin Allan, told the staff they had been asked to save documents "in light of what has gone on in London at News of the World, and not because any recipient has done anything improper or unlawful."

The memo, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, went on to say: "As we watched the news in the UK over the last few weeks, we knew that as a News Corp tabloid, we would be looked at more closely. So this is not unexpected.

"I want to stress that your full and absolute cooperation is necessary and you are expected to comply with this direction from our legal department.

"At the same time, please know we understand and take very seriously your concerns over the protection of legitimate journalistic sources. While we have instituted this hold, we do intend to protect from disclosure all legitimate and lawful journalistic sources in accordance with the law."

News Corp declined to comment on the memos.

News Corp's now defunct U.K. tabloid News of the World is at the center of a bitter scandal in which the newspaper has been accused of hacking individual's phones, including that of a teenage girl who was murdered.

The scandal has embroiled some of News Corp's most senior executives, including Rupert Murdoch and his son James, and British politicians and police.

It has grown increasingly more serious since the beginning of July and has caused News Corp to drop its bid for the stake of British pay TV company BSkyB it does not already own.

Murdoch and his son James, News Corp's deputy chief operating officer, have testified before a parliamentary committee regarding the phone hacking.

John Rockefeller, chairman of the U.S. Senate commerce committee, has called for an investigation to determine if News Corp has broken any U.S. laws and the FBI is investigating allegations News Corp might have hacked the phones of victims of the September 11 attacks in the United States.

Les Hinton, who was the chief executive of Dow Jones & Co, which publishes the Wall Street Journal, resigned his post on July 15. Hinton was head of News Corp's British newspaper unit, News International, when phone hacking was said to have occurred.

Last week, Robert Thomson, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal, sent a memo to staff reminding them that the newsroom had set up a confidential hotline for any employee who was concerned about journalistic practices at Dow Jones.

(Reporting by Jennifer Saba; editing by Andre Grenon)

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