A tortured Libyan man's bid to sue the UK government for allegedly colluding in his rendition cannot be settled in a UK court, the High Court rules.
The judge said Abdul-Hakim Belhaj had a "well founded claim" but pursuing it would jeopardise national security.
Mr Belhaj says he was seized in China in 2004 as he was about to fly to London to claim asylum.
He says the UK tipped off Libya and helped the US arrange his rendition there, where he says he was tortured.
His legal team said he would try to appeal against the decision.
'Non-justiciable'In 2004, Abdul-Hakim Belhaj was an opponent of then-Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi who was a friend of Britain.
Papers discovered in Tripoli in 2011 show the British security services bent over backwards to help the Libyan intelligence services get its hands on Mr Belhaj.
When he and his pregnant wife tried to travel from Beijing to London to claim asylum, the Gaddafi regime was tipped off.
From China they were removed to Malaysia, then Bangkok, where they say they were bundled into a van on the runway by US agents in balaclavas and put on a CIA plane to Tripoli.
Because the claims involved four foreign states, the High Court decided they were beyond the jurisdiction of the British courts.
But the judge said he had hesitated in his judgement.
He said Parliamentary oversight - in the form of the Intelligence and Security Committee - and a criminal investigation by the police was no substitute for access to, and a decision by, a court.
Abdel Hakim Belhaj's solicitors agree. They are appealing.
Mr Belhaj was the leader of an Islamist group which fought the Gaddafi regime.
He claims CIA agents took him from Thailand to Libya via UK-controlled Diego Garcia in 2004.
The then Labour home secretary Jack Straw has denied being aware of the rendition and allowing it to happen.
Mr Belhaj has been attempting to sue Mr Straw, former senior MI6 official Sir Mark Allen, the security services and the Foreign Office.
Mr Justice Simon said that because most of the claims related to officials in China, Malaysia, Thailand and Libya they were "non-justiciable" in the UK.
But the judge said there appeared to be a "potentially well-founded claim that the UK authorities were directly implicated in the extra-ordinary rendition of the claimants."
Mr Belhaj says he was with his pregnant wife when they were captured in China.
His solicitor Sapna Malik said: "If this judgement stands, it will mean that anything our security services do alongside the US government is totally immune from the British legal system, even if MI6 officers arrange the rendition of a pregnant woman into the arms of Gaddafi."
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