Libya’s delegation seeks to hand over al- Senussi

Abdullah al-Senussi Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz received Monday evening France’s envoy in Nouakchott to discuss the needs of handing over Muammar Gaddafi's former chief of intelligence, Abdullah al-Senussi who was arrested in Mauritania with the help of French authority, coinciding with the arrival of the Libyan delegation to step up pressure on Mauritania for al-Senussi transfer.
Libyan Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abu Shagour flew into Nouakchott to urge Mauritania to hand over al-Senussi, citing what he called a "community of interests" between the two Arab League members.
"We are attached to those ties and we are determined to take back Abdallah al-Senussi because he has committed crimes against Libyans, so that he can be judged in Libya by Libyan justice," he told reporters at Nouakchott airport.
Sources close to the Mauritanian government said a meeting between the delegation and President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz had been scheduled for early Tuesday.
France and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague also want to take him into custody.
The statement from the office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy noted that al-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.
The ICC has charged al-Senussi and Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam as being "indirect co-perpetrators" of murder and persecution.
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.
International human rights groups doubt al-Senussi will have a fair trial in Libya and have said it would be preferable for him to go to the ICC, which has indicted him on two counts of crimes against humanity during last year's uprising.
Al-Senussi was held at the headquarters of the security service in Nouakchott before being transferred to the police training school within a heavily guarded complex, local security sources said. Diplomatic sources said he had been carrying several false passports when he was detained.
A Mauritanian security source said that authorities had yet to take a decision on the fate of al-Senussi, who is accused of playing a central role in repression and torture under Gaddafi.
Within the same context, some local sources suggested that Mauritanian regime will use al-Senussi’s case to put pressure on some of its political opponents.
According to the sources, Mauritanian opposition used to receive funds from Gaddafi’s regime.
Meanwhile, the Mauritanian opposition parties called on Monday not to hand over the Libyan former official, requesting the authority to free al- Senussi.
Al-Senussi was Gaddafi's right-hand man. Security experts said Mauritania's government would face huge massive diplomatic pressure in the tussle over a man with access to some of the best-kept secrets of the Gaddafi regime.
Al-Senussi's name has been linked to the 1988 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland of a Pan Am jet that killed 270 people. He is also widely thought to know details of Gaddafi's cooperation with Western states.