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 By Mike Thomson.
On the 20th of June 1985 British engineer, James Abra, was in the departure lounge of Tripoli Airport preparing to fly home when an official tapped on the shoulder..and led him to prison.
The man whispered that there was a problem with his bags and his colleagues would like a word. Mr Abra was led to a left. The baggage area was upstairs but the lift went down. When the doors opened a group of armed men leaped upon him, put his arm in a half-nelson and threw him onto the floor of a waiting van. It was the start of a nightmare that lasted three years and has left Mr Abra very cross about Britain鈥檚 growing friendship with Libya.
When the British Foreign Office Minister, Mike O鈥橞rien, led a delegation of British business executives to Tripoli towards the end of April 2004 he would have passed near Tripoli鈥檚 Jedayda jail. This was where James Abra was taken after the arrest which followed his horrific van ride from the airport. He soon found himself in a cell that he shared with 18 other prisoners. Many of them were murders. One man had chopped his wife鈥檚 head off. For this he was jailed for five years. Mr Abra was soon to face the death sentence after being convicted of spying in a People鈥檚 Court. His trial lasted just half an hour and throughout the proceedings his appointed defence council refused to speak to him.
James Abra had initially arrived in Libya as an engineer working for the company, Plessey, after being invited there by the Libyan government. His job was to draw up plans to modernise the country鈥檚 obsolete radar system. But the Libyans claimed they had evidence that he was a spy. All they provided to support this was a confession signed by Mr Abra which he says was dictated to him by his interrogators. This followed two mock executions. These involved Mr Abra being blindfolded, led out to a courtyard by men with rifles and then told to stand still. On other occasions he was told that if he failed to answer a particular question he would be shot immediately.
His first hopes of release came in April 1986 when American planes bombed targets in Tripoli in retaliation for Libyan鈥檚 suspected role in the bombing of a Berlin night club which killed several US soldiers. Mr Abra says he remembers guards celebrating in the corridors of the jail, convinced that this was the end of Colonel Gaddafi鈥檚 regime. In the morning he was summoned to see the prison鈥檚 governor who told him that he should prepare himself for release within the next few hours. This never happened. Mr Abra later discovered that the Libyan government had thought the raid was in response to the life sentence for spying he was given just two days earlier. It seems his cattors were anxious to see the back of him before more bombs fell.
In the months that followed Jim Abra was told first that his wife in England had died in a fire at their home and then that his sister was also dead. Finally, on March the 13th 1988 the moment he had longed for came and he was finally freed.
Sixteen years later Mr Abra watched Britain鈥檚 Prime Minister, Tony Blair shake hands with Libya鈥檚 Colonel Gaddafi in Tripoli. Much of the world celebrated the meeting as a rare symbol of peace and reconciliation in an increasingly tense world. But for James Abra it was a chilling moment.
Would he ever return to Libya to witness how much it is said to have changed? 鈥淣o chance鈥 says Mr Abra. 鈥淚 cannot believe that after decades of trying to destroy all the west stands for that he鈥檚 now completely changed his spots. It just doesn鈥檛 stack up.鈥
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