Blair and Gaddafi: The desert deal that went bad

It was a bizarre meeting but one they claimed held hope for the future.

In a drab, sun-bleached tent in a scrubby field surrounded by flatulent camels, Tony Blair clasped the hand of Muammar Gaddafi and beamed: "It's good to be here."

Thus did the former prime minister sign up to his infamous "Deal in the Desert" with the monster whose bloody regime was responsible for the death in 1984 of Pc Yvonne Fletcher in London, accused of the Lockerbie bombing, had supplied the IRA with arms, as well as a string of human rights abuses.

They did not kiss each cheek, as Mr Blair's media handlers had dreaded, and the body language was not warm. But the spin from No 10 was that the meeting in the desert on 24 March 2004 was a time to draw a line under the past.

Gaddafi, they said, wanted to come in from the cold. Shocked by the toppling of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, he was willing to give up his quest for weapons of mass destruction, help Scotland Yard bring Pc Fletcher's killer to justice, become a real partner with the West and sign a lot of trade deals.

The killer of Pc Fletcher has not been brought to book. The Lockerbie bomber is a free man. And the Tripoli regime, as recent events prove, is as murderous as ever. But the trade deals were real: a gas contract for Shell worth £120million was signed on the spot.

In return, Gaddafi was to receive military equipment and training for his troops in Britain, allegedly to safeguard Libya against extremist threats.

Seven years later, it is sobering to ask whether the mercenaries who murdered hundreds of Libyans in recent days were trained here. The repercussions of the Deal in the Desert continue to echo.