WikiLeaks: British officials toured Libyan chemical weapons lab months before Tony Blair visit

British officials were given a tour of a secret chemical weapons laboratory in Tripoli months before agreeing a series of lucrative trade deals with Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

WikiLeaks: British officials toured Libyan chemical weapons lab months before Tony Blair visit
Nine months later Prime Minister Tony Blair met Col Gaddafi in Libya and set in motion the eventual release of the Lockerbie bomber

Scientists from Britain and America visited the chemical weapons facility as it was being built in August 2006.

The cable, a copy of which was leaked to the WikiLeaks website and seen by The Daily Telegraph, detailed a visit by the scientists to a military facility in Tajura, on the outskirts of Tripoli.

The communique reports: "US and UK experts were both told that a lab under construction at the facility would be for chemical weapons defensive purposes."

The experts told their hosts that Libya "might have to declare it to the OPCW [Office for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons]" which monitors stockpiles.

The cable continues: "The lab US and UK experts were taken to on August 9 is still under construction (old classroom section being refitted), includes an air handling system, an almost fully tiled 'preparation room' and what appeared to be a 'cold storage' room, all of which are consistent with a lab that could be used for work with chemical and/or biological agents.

"Although the lab could easily be completed in a short time, Col Othmann and his staff estimated that it could take up to a year to finish construction."

The scientists suggested that chemical weapons experts should visit the site when it was completed to see what was being used for.

Andy Oppenheimer, editor of Chemical and Biological Warfare Review, said the facility described in the cable was "quite clearly" being used to develop chemical and biological weapons agents.

"The Libyans may well claim that this facility is for defence, but that's a very thin argument because in order to defend against chemical weapons you have to build them and test them first," he said.

He continued: "Libya clearly did develop chemical weapons. There was a load of mustard gas and blistering agent that that was being destroyed under the terms of the Chemical Weapons Convention, but there are now fears that the Libyans are lying and that they have stocks which haven't been declared.

A spokesman for the OPCW declined to comment on the leaked cable.

Libya is estimated to have 13.6 metric tonnes of sulphur mustard and 556 metric tonnes of CW precursor chemicals by the OPCW.