NPIA ‘on standby’ to help Libyan security services

British police officers could be sent to Libya to help the country’s security services following the fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime and the declaration of liberation by the National Transitional Council (NTC).

The National Policing Improvement Agency (NPIA) is “on standby”, along with organisations across Europe, to provide assistance if required to do so.

However, a decision is unlikely to be made until after a full-functioning transitional government is formed, and any assistance will come at its request, with the UN deciding who is best placed to help.

The Department for International Development currently has one officer in Libya assisting with elements of the transition, but more could travel there if the new government decides it would benefit from assistance in certain areas of security.

“The UK has the capability to assist and we are part of a waiting game now,” said Kurt Eyre, head of the NPIA’s Bramshill International Academy.

“It is what we do but we would only deploy officers once we know such a move has been fully sanctioned.”

If the NPIA was asked to assist, it would be able to provide police training and support mechanisms to the Libyans.

“We have certainly got the skills and the ability that could assist countries like Libya,” said Paul Brooks, the NPIA’s International Policing Adviser for Africa. “It is not unforeseeable that we would be asked to go. If the Government wants us to deliver some form of training then of course we would as long as we have the people from our perspective to do that.

“It has got to be high on the priorities of the new government to have some form of policing body in relation to the transition.”

The NPIA and the last Labour government were criticised in 2009 after it was revealed officers had been training members of Libya’s force despite a refusal to hand over the killer of PC Yvonne Fletcher.

The news caused a particular stir as it came 25 years after PC Fletcher’s death and shortly after Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi was freed and returned to Libya on compassionate grounds, with the programme described as an insult to the officer’s memory and “naïve and insensitive”.

However, Mr Eyre believes such a move would not prove so controversial now Gaddafi is dead and Libya’s new leaders have promised to bring PC Fletcher’s killer to justice.

He said: “The circumstances are completely different now.

“The nature of the relationship was different at that time and there was a perfect storm of issues.

“However, the principle remains the same which is to make policing more accountable and professional.”