Guardian:
Colonel Gaddafi's regime has sent one of its most trusted envoys to London for confidential talks with British officials, the Guardian can reveal.
Mohammed Ismail, a senior aide to Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam, visited London in recent days, British government sources familiar with the meeting have confirmed.
The contacts with Ismail are believed to have been one of a number between Libyan officials and the west in the last fortnight, amid signs that the regime may be looking for an exit strategy.
Disclosure of Ismail's visit comes in the immediate aftermath of the defection to Britain of Moussa Koussa, Libya's foreign minister and the country's former external intelligence head, who has been Britain's main conduit to the Gaddafi regime since the early 1990s.
A team led by the British ambassador to Libya, Richard Northern, and MI6 officers, embarked on a lengthy debriefing of Koussa at a safe house after he flew into Farnborough airport on Wednesday night from Tunisia. Government sources said the questioning would take time because Koussa's state of mind was "delicate" after he left his family in Libya. The Foreign Office declined "to provide a running commentary" on contacts with Ismail or other regime officials. But news of the meeting comes amid mounting speculation that Gaddafi's sons, foremost among them Saif al-Islam, Saadi and Mutassim, are anxious to explore a way out of the crisis in Libya.
"There has been increasing evidence recently that the sons want a way out," said a western diplomatic source.
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The boys probably would like to cut a deal that will let them keep some of the wealth they have confiscated over the years. They may also have the ability to sway the old man into a deal, but I would not bet on it.
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