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By George Grant.
Tripoli, 5 September:
Libya’s former spy chief and brother-in-law to deposed leader Muammar Qaddafi has been extradited from Mauritania and . . .[restrict]has now arrived in Tripoli where he has been transferred to Hadba prison.
Abdullah Al-Senussi, who is also wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of Crimes Against Humanity, was arrested in Mauritania in March, having previously fled to Morocco following the collapse of the Qaddafi regime last year.
“Senussi was flown into Metiga airbase early this afternoon and transferred by helicopter to Hadba prison”, said Colonel Mohammed Gwaider, the prison governor.
Hadba also holds a number of other prominent former regime members, including Abuzeid Dorda, Qaddafi’s former external intelligence chief, and Baghdadi Al-Mahmoudi, his former prime minister.
News of Senussi’s imminent arrival in Tripoli was earlier confirmed to the Libya Herald by Mohammed Alakiri, a senior advisor to Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur.
Abushagur secured an agreement in principal for Senussi’s extradition from the government in Nouakchott following a visit to Mauritania in May, and negotiations as to the details and timing of his return to Libya have been ongoing since.
The deputy prime minister is currently visiting the south of the country as part of reconciliation mission between tribal groups and it is reported that Senussi has been met by Justice Minister Ali Ashour Ehmida.
Prime Minister Abdurrahim Al-Kib is expected to make a formal announcement regarding the extradition shortly.
Senussi is wanted in Libya for crimes committed both before and during last year’s pro-democracy uprising. Most notoriously, he has been held responsible 1996 Abu Salim prison massacre, in which 1,200 inmates were killed following an attempted breakout.
The former intelligence chief has also been implicated in various international crimes including the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988, which killed 270 people, and the downing of a UTA airliner over Niger the following year, in which 170 died.
France, which also has a warrant outstanding for Senussi’s arrest, convicted him in absentia to life imprisonment in 1999 in connection with the Niger bombing.
Earlier this year, Adel Almansouri, one of the Libyan students shot outside the Libyan Embassy in London in 1984, told this paper that Senussi may well hold answers to the killing of WPC Yvonne Fletcher.
With Libya’s justice system still underdeveloped following years of neglect under the Qaddafi regime and the subsequent upheavals of last year’s revolution, rights groups have frequently aired their concerns that Senussi will not be afforded a fair trial in Libya.
However, the government has repeatedly maintained that it is competent to try high profile cases such as Senussi’s and that any hearing will be free and fair. [/restrict]
