Operation Oil Theft: Week 2. Day 6.

Over the past 24 hours the rebels have continued their retreat with little encouragement from Libyan government forces. Having abandoned Brega they now occupy positions on the western outskirts of a Ajdabiya meaning that they only need to fall back another 200km to Benghazi until they meet their obligations under resolution 1973(2011). This is probably what prompted the British Prime Minister, David Cameron to last night (30/3/11) call a meeting of Conservative MP's where he is reported to have told them to prepare for failure in Libya.

Clearly not everyone got that message because at around 20:30 the British Foreign Office announced that the Libyan Foreign Minister, Moussa Koussa had defected to Britain.

Despite having a delightful name Moussa Koussa is a man with a very dark past. In 1979 he was assigned to the Libyan Embassy in London where he headed a department charged with monitoring Libyan exiles in London, many of whom were even then suspected of working for Britain's MI6. In 1980 the British police investigating the murders of two of these exiles uncovered evidence directly linking Mr Koussa to the killings. As is usual for cases involving foreign diplomats rather then issuing an arrest warrant Britain got Koussa to leave the country although rather then simply requesting that he left the country I believe Britain went as far as to have Koussa declared persona non grata - in effect deporting him and banning him from ever re-entering the country.

On his return to Libya Koussa was assigned to the much feared Libyan intelligence service and rose to the post of service chief in the early 1990's. However during the early 1980's Koussa was tasked with anti-terrorism working to protect Libya from terrorist attack. Obviously this gave him great knowledge of how to carry out terrorist attacks and it is widely accepted that it was Koussa who conceived and planned the Lockerbie bombing. It was only after the 1987 US bombing of Tripoli that Qaddafi finally gave him permission to carry out the attack which is why Koussa is known as the father of the Lockerbie bomb. As he was also the man who negotiated the handing over of those responsible for the attack with the British and US authorities it appears that he saved his own skin by sacrificing al-Megrahi.

Due to his close links with Britain and his success in getting Libya taken off George Bush's axis of evil list Koussa was appointed Libyan Foreign Minister in 2009 and held the post until, well yesterday. He continued though to maintain close links with the Libyan intelligence service who are accused of carrying out many of the recent atrocities. At some point between the first reports of the Libyan uprising and the passing of 1973(2011) there was a huge argument at the centre of the Libyan government between Moussa Koussa and Saif Qaddafi who is believed to have accused Koussa of being a British agent. This led to Koussa being effectively exiled by being sent on a endless diplomatic tour outside of Libya. As both the International Criminal Court and Interpol had already indicated that they were very keen to speak to Koussa about his inolvement in alleged war crimes in eastern Libya this should be viewed as a very hazardous job.

It's no surprise then that Koussa pretty much limited his diplomatic tour to Tunisia where he most certainly had contact with members of MI6 who still have a very strong presence in the country due to their long support for the dictator Ben Ali. Then for reasons that are not yet clear Koussa decided to fly to the UK. On landing he was reminded of the international arrest warrants that had been issued against him and the several British arrest warrants that could very easily be issued against him. He was then asked if he wished to be a prisoner or an exile. Funnily enough he decided to be an exile although the British will call him a defector because they've got a propaganda war to fight.