Blair had six 'secret meetings' with Gaddafi

London, Sept 25 (ANI): Tony Blair had held secret talks with Libyan dictator Colonel Muammar Gaddafi six times in three years after he stepped down as British Prime Minister, it has emerged.

According to the Telegraph, five of those meetings took place in a 14-month period before the release of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. arlier it was revealed that on at least two occasions Blair flew to Tripoli on a private jet paid for by the Libyan regime.

The new meeting uncovered is a visit to Gaddafi in January 2009, when JP Morgan, the US investment bank which pays Blair two million pounds a year as a senior adviser, was trying to negotiate a deal between the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) and a company run by the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

The multi-billion dollar deal, which later fell through, would have seen the LIA provide a loan to Rusal, the world's largest aluminium producer, the paper said.

Global Witness, an anti-corruption campaign group that obtained the Rusal email, said Blair's links to the LIA raised potential conflicts of interest between his roles as a Middle East peace envoy, fund-raiser in Africa and business adviser.

Blair's spokesman, however, denies the former PM had any role in the deal.

"Tony Blair has never had any role, either formal or informal, paid or unpaid, with the Libyan Investment Authority or the Government of Libya and he has not and has never had any commercial, business or advisory relationship with any Libyan company or entity," the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, Blair is coming under increasing pressure to make public details of all his meetings and discussions with Gaddafi. (ANI)