From:

<http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2006/01/asil_nadir_mi6_1.html>

January 02, 2006

Asil Nadir, MI6, and the flight to Cyprus

[by Craig Murray]

An interesting Point:

I was head of the Cyprus Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
when Asil Nadir of Polly Peck fled the UK while on bail (an old scandal
you could google).

Nadir was in a hotel in North Cyprus, and I was discussing with MI6 a
plan to kidnap him and bring him in to one of the UK sovereign base
areas on the island.

The plan was blocked because, in a case recent at that time, the House
of Lords had ruled that anyone taken unlawfully and brought into our
jurisdiction could not be held and tried.

It ran through my mind again when considering the Athens case. The joy
of extraordinary rendition is, of course, that you are not bringing them
in to this country, where they would have the protection of the courts,
but you're kidnapping them and taking them to places where they can be
abused and tortured.

Returning back down memory lane to the Nadir case, I am convinced there
was complicity by the authorities in his escape. The police surveillance
unit was stood down for the bank holiday weekend to avoid the expense of
paying them overtime (I am not making this up). He plainly knew this was
going to happen, because within minutes he was in a fast car (driven by
a professional racing driver) who drove him to an airfield where a
private plane was waiting with engines running.

There were many in the then political establishment who had taken
Nadir's shilling and didn't want him in the witness box. That is why I
was looking at extreme measures to get him back.

But you will have to wait until I have finished my second book, and it's
been banned, before you learn more of that...

Craig

***END***

-- 
banana     "The thing I hate about you, Rowntree, is the way you
            give Coca-Cola to your scum, and your best teddy-bear to
            Oxfam, and expect us to lick your frigid fingers for the
            rest of your frigid life." (Mick Travis, 'If...', 1968)