Gaddafi spy chief to be tried in Libya

05 September 2012

Colonel Gaddafi's former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi has been handed over to authorities in Libya after months of detention in Mauritania, it has been announced.

Senussi was arrested in March after arriving at a Mauritanian airport from Morocco using false documents and wearing a disguise.

The Mauritanian government confirmed he has now been handed over to an official Libyan delegation led by the country's justice minister.

Libya, France and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands had been fighting to win Senussi's extradition once his detention was confirmed.

Senussi was one of three people wanted by the ICC for allegations of crimes against humanity committed during Libya's 2011 civil war. The other men wanted were former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed in October 2011, and his son Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, who is currently being held in custody by the Libyan authorities. Saif Gaddafi's Libyan trial is set to take place in Zintan later this month.

Senussi is also wanted by authorities in France after being sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the 1989 bombing of a passenger jet over Niger which killed 170 people, including 54 French nationals. He was found guilty of masterminding the bombing in absentia by a French court in 1999, and faces a life sentence.

In Libya, Senussi faces charges relating to the 2011 civil war and his time working as gaddafi's intelligence chief. He is alleged to have had a key role in the 1996 Abu Salim prison massacre, in which over 1,200 unarmed prisoners are thought to have been killed.