Belhaj said intelligence officers from other European countries, including France, Germany and Italy, also travelled to Tripoli to speak to him inside the infamous Abu Selim prison in south Tripoli.

Before each visit he was told by Libyan officers – and sometimes by Koussa – to „tell the British and others that the people they are asking about are al-Qaida“.

„The Libyans told me that if I told them that I would be treated better.“

He said Koussa, who fled the Gaddafi regime in March with MI6 help, would often taunt him in prison, with threats that he would die there.