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MPs want to quiz Blair over bid to save Gadaffi’s life

TONY Blair could be hauled before MPs to respond to allegations that he was part of an effort to save Muammar Gadaffi during the 2011 military intervention in Libya.

In a new biography of David Cameron, it is claimed that Mr Blair approached Downing Street to say that he had been contacted by “a key individual close to Gadaffi” and that he wanted to “cut a deal.”

According to the book, Mr Cameron decided not to follow up the approach because he wanted to avoid “doing anything which might be seen to give the Libyan leader succour.”

Mr Gadaffi was later killed by rebel fighters on the streets of Sirte.

Parliament’s foreign affairs committee, which is conducting an inquiry into the Libya campaign, indicated it was likely to ask Mr Blair to come and explain his involvement.

It said Mr Blair would also be able to provide information about the policies his government had pursued previously, when he oversaw a controversial rapprochement with Mr Gadaffi in 2004.

This “deal in the desert” has been linked by human-rights groups to Britain’s involvement in the kidnap and rendition of Gadaffi opponents to Tripoli, where they were jailed and tortured.

Legal action charity Reprieve is suing the British government and MI6 over their involvement in the rendition of Libyan dissidents Abdel Hakim Belhaj, Sami al-Saadi and their families to Tripoli in 2004.

Committee chairman Crispin Blunt said: “Any inquiry would have to have a look at that, and then the suggestion that he made an intervention during the course of 2011 certainly strengthens the case for having him come and give evidence.”

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