MI6 'halted bid to arrest bin Laden'

Startling revelations by French intelligence experts back David Shayler's alleged 'fantasy'about Gadaffi plot

Martin Bright, home affairs editor
Sunday November 10, 2002
The Observer

British intelligence paid large sums of money to an al-Qaeda cell in Libya in a doomed attempt to assassinate Colonel Gadaffi in 1996 and thwarted early attempts to bring Osama bin Laden to justice.The latest claims of MI6 involvement with Libya's fearsome Islamic Fighting Group, which is connected to one of bin Laden's trusted lieutenants, will be embarrassing to the Government, which described similar claims by renegade MI5 officer David Shayler as 'pure fantasy'.

According to journalist Guillaume Dasqui