Gaddafi spy chief arrested in Mauritania-officials

Mauritanian authorities acting with French helped arrest Muammar Gaddafi's former chief of intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi, as he entered the West African country on a false passport, officials said on Saturday.

Senussi, who for decades before the late dictator's fall inspired fear and hatred in ordinary Libyans, is sought by the Hague-based International Criminal Court on charges of crimes against humanity. The whereabouts of Senussi, the last major figure at large from Gaddafi's regime, had been unclear for months.

But his arrest immediately raised questions as to where he would be tried. The ICC urged Mauritania to send him to The Hague while the French government said it wanted him extradited to France, citing his alleged role in the 1989 bombing of an airliner over Niger in which 54 French nationals died. Libya also said it wanted to extradite Senussi.

Abdullah Al-Senussi, Muammar Gaddafi's former intelligence chief. Photo:Reuters

"Today we confirm the news of the arrest of Abdullah al-Senussi," Libyan government spokesman Nasser al-Manee told a news conference in Tripoli.

"He was arrested this morning in Nouakchott airport and there was a young man with him. We think it is his son," he said, confirming a Mauritanian state news agency report that Senussi was arrested with a false Malian passport arriving from Casablanca, Morocco.

France, which led Western backing for the popular uprising that toppled Gaddafi, said it had cooperated with Mauritanian authorities over the arrest and that it would send an arrest warrant to Mauritania "in the next few hours".

The statement from the office of President Nicolas Sarkozy noted that Senussi had been sentenced in absentia for the 1989 bombing of a UTA airliner, in which a total 170 people were killed. Families of the victims immediately demanded he face justice in France.

Yet Libya said he would receive a fair trial there, while the ICC also declared its desire for him to be transferred to The Hague war crimes court - creating a possible legal tug-of-war over Senussi.

"For the time being, there is an ICC arrest warrant for him, and the court requests it to be implemented. This remains valid, unless the ICC judges decide otherwise," ICC spokesman Fadi El-Abdallah said.

"Gaddafi's black box"

Senussi is suspected of a key role in the killing of more than 1,200 inmates at Tripoli's Abu Salim prison in 1996. It was the arrest of a lawyer for victims' relatives that sparked Libya's Arab Spring revolt in February last year.

The ICC has charged Senussi and Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam as being "indirect co-perpetrators" of murder and persecution.

But Guillaume Denoix de Saint Marc, president of the families association for the UTA bombing, said they counted on France to ensure Senussi faced justice for the attack.

"We never lost hope that those responsible for this attack, the most deadly that has hit France, would face justice," he said in a statement.

Senussi's arrest provoked equally fierce emotion on the streets of Tripoli.

"Senussi is Gaddafi's black box, he has a lot of information," Tripoli resident Mustafa Jhyma said. "He has blood on his hands he should be brought here and tried in Libya."

"This is a big moment for Libyans. I wish that he had been arrested here," another resident Abdullah al-Mory said.

Saif al-Islam was captured disguised as a Bedouin in the Sahara in November is awaiting trial in Libya on rape and murder charges. Libya's National Transitional Council says he will get a fair hearing but his supporters want him sent to the Hague.

Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, an army general who was toppled his predecessor in a 2008 coup, won election in a 2009 vote decried by rivals as rigged.

Yet France has hailed him as a "key partner" and he went on to play a leading role in the awkward African diplomacy over Libya that finally led to the continent recognising the National Transitional Council as its new leaders.

-Reuters