An Alleged Libyan extremist who sought political asylum in Britain regularly travelled to Iran from 2002 to provide forged documents to extremists linked to al-Qaeda, secret files found in a Tripoli intelligence service building have disclosed.
The documents, seen by The Daily Telegraph, unearth British intelligence suspicions about links between Iran and al-Qaeda dating back almost a decade.
Other details to come out of the documents, sent by MI6 and found in the office of the former head of foreign intelligence and later foreign minister Moussa Koussa, who defected in March, include the revelation that Britain had begun co-operating with the Chinese security services on Islamic extremists.
The extent of Iranian co-operation with al-Qaeda has been disputed in intelligence communities, though Iranians are thought to have provided weapons and explosives to the Taliban in Afghanistan.
A number of al-Qaeda operatives, including members of the family of Osama bin Laden, fled to Tehran after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and their precise status in Iran has been unclear.
The papers in Libya do not directly challenge the Iranian government, but suggest that al-Qaeda operatives had more freedom of movement there than previously thought.