Al Qaeda commander commits suicide in Libya jail

Telegraph:

Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi, whose real name was Ali Mohammed al-Fakheri, 46, took his own life in his prison cell, according to the Libyan newspaper Oea.

Information gained from the interrogation of al-Libi was cited on several occasions by the Bush administration as justification for the war in Iraq.

He told his CIA interrogators that al-Qaeda had sent two men to Iraq to seek training in chemical and biological weapons in December 2000. Classified documents added that the men did not return, so al-Libi did not know whether the training took place, and that, in any case, he was probably "intentionally misleading the debriefers".

Al-Libi recanted the story in January 2004, although George Tenet, the former director of the CIA, wrote later: "The fact is, we don't know which story is true, and since we don't know, we can assume nothing."

Noman Benotman, a Libyan who was once close to al-Libi, said two years ago that al-Libi had been sent to Libya, adding that he was "extremely ill, suffering from tuberculosis and diabetes".

Al-Libi was said to be involved with Abu Zubaydah in running the Khalden, training camp in Afghanistan, where Zacarias Moussaoui, a member of the September 11 gang, received instruction.

He was captured in Pakistan in early 2002 and sent first to Kanadahar in Afghanistan, then to the USS Bataan and finally to Guantanamo Bay, before he was sent to Egypt for further interrogation.

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The story repeats the canard about the Bush administration's reasons for going to war in Iraq. The human rights wackos also repeat the torture meme. If this guy was running a terrorist training camp aimed at the US then the world is better off without this dedicated Islamic religious bigot. Good riddance.