Tony Blair urged Colonel Gaddafi to flee to 'safe place'

Former prime minister Tony Blair urged Colonel Gaddafi to flee Libya and find "a safe place to go" to avoid being killed, Hillary Clinton's private emails have revealed.

The revelation, which raises fresh questions about Blair's role in Libya, emerged from Clinton's emails released under US freedom of information laws.

In a message sent during the Libyan uprising in 2011 from Blair's head of strategy Catherine Rimmer to Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan, it was revealed that the former Labour prime minister had phoned the Libyan leader "very privately" to deliver a "very strong message".

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Blair apparently told Gaddafi: "The absolute key thing is that the bloodshed and violence must stop". He also advised the controversial leader: "If you have a safe place to go then you should go there, because this will not end peacefully unless that happens and there has to be a process of change."

The news will intensify the pressure on Blair to testify to a Commons inquiry into Britain's foreign policy towards Libya. The Labour leader ended Gaddafi's international isolation with his so-called "deal in the desert" in 2004.

A biography of David Cameron claims Blair tried to intervene with Downing Street policy during the 2011 uprising. According to Cameron At 10, by Anthony Seldon and Peter Snowdon, Blair telephoned Cameron to say that he had been contacted by "a key individual close to Gaddafi" and that the Libyan dictator wanted to "cut a deal" with Britain.

Cameron – who ordered RAF airstrikes against Gaddafi's forces – did not take up the offer, says the book. Libyan rebels overran the capital, Tripoli, in August 2011. Gaddafi was captured and killed two months later.