London: When Libya's former spy chief flew to Mauritania last week, he was looking for a safe haven. Instead the man known as ‘Muammar Gaddafi's black box', the last of the fallen dictator's henchmen still at large, walked into a trap set by French and Mauritanian intelligence.
Gaddafi's head of intelligence, right-hand man and brother-in law, Abdullah Al Sanussi, 62, was arrested in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, last week. The still murky circumstances of his capture set Libya on a collision course with France and the International Criminal Court, which both want Al Sanussi.
Extradition bid
Libya wants Al Sanussi to stand trial in Tripoli for a catalogue of crimes. It sent a delegation to Mauritania but it returned without him after officials there said the legal formalities for his extradition were not complete.
Governments in the West and the Arab World are all too aware of the secrets Al Sanussi holds, and are anxious to deny him the opportunity to say what he knows in public and expose those that used Gaddafi to plot against their enemies.
"He is Gaddafi's black box," said Noman Benotman, a senior Libyan analyst at the Quilliam Foundation.
He is widely suspected of anchoring high-profile conspiracies such as the 1988 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, of a Pan Am jet that killed 270 people, the 1989 bombing of a French UTA airliner that killed 170 people, and plots against Arab and African states.
Al Sanussi is also believed by government officials in Libya to have details of how Libya helped to finance the election campaign that brought French President Nicolas Sarkozy to power in 2007, and of Gaddafi's involvement with Western states.
"He knows everything about the Lockerbie bombing, the deal that followed, the UTA, the money trail, Gaddafi's financing of presidents and their electoral campaigns. He was part of the cobweb of financial corruption that existed under Gaddafi for 40 years," a senior Arab intelligence source said.
Bone of contention
"This is totally false," a French diplomatic source said in response to the claim. "We must let justice take its course. "There is an extradition request and justice must take its course. This is totally absurd."
In an interview with the Euronews TV channel last year, Gaddafi's son, Saif Al Islam, said Libya contributed to Sarkozy's 2007 election campaign.
In recent election interviews, Sarkozy vehemently denied he received any such funding from Gaddafi.
"There are countries which conspired with Gaddafi against other neighbouring countries, plotting coups, assassinations and attacks. Sanussi used to tape these meetings secretly, deliver the messages and organise the plots," Benotman said, referring to a tape broadcast on a Syrian-based channel in which an Arab leader was heard discusssing with Gaddafi a conspiracy against another Arab country.
"Some Arab and African countries entrusted Gaddafi to do their dirty work against their enemies," the Arab intelligence source said. "France does not want to hand him over to the Libyan authorities. France was behind enticing him to leave Mali and his entrapment. He was in northern Mali under the government's protection. He was drawn to Mauritania by a tribe close to Sanussi following a deal by the French and Mauritanian intelligence to lure him to his arrest.
"A French special unit worked on his arrest, establishing contact with a Mauritanian tribe, al-Me'edani, whom Sanussi trusted, financed and had given Libyan nationality. The deal was reached by persuading this family to draw Sanussi to Mauritania where he was arrested."
Clandestine operator
Among the operations Al Sanussi knew about, Noman Benotman, senior Libyan analyst at the Quilliam Foundation, and other Arab sources say, were the financing of insurgents in Iraq after the 2003 US invasion, and backing for Shiite groups in Bahrain to spite Saudi Arabia, Manama's main ally.
"Abdullah [Al] Sanussi was the anchor, supervisor, facilitator, financier and executor of these plots," Benotman said.
Al Sanussi's last intervention was in Yemen to finance and arm the Al Ahmar tribe in fighting the then president Ali Abdullah Saleh. A Libyan government source said the handover of Al Sanussi would lead to "the unlocking of many doors".
For decades, Al Sanussi was the keeper of Gaddafi's secrets. He instilled fear and hatred among Libyans before Gaddafi was toppled in August. After the fall of Tripoli, Al Sanussi parted from Gaddafi and escaped across the border into northern Mali.
The International Criminal Court in The Hague indicted Al Sanussi along with Gaddafi and his son Saif Al Islam last year for war crimes.
Al Sanussi is suspected of a key role in the killing of more than 1,200 inmates at Tripoli's Abu Salim prison in 1996. The ICC has charged Al Sanussi and Saif Al Islam with being ‘indirect co-perpetrators' of murder and persecution. France said it had cooperated with Mauritania over the arrest and that it would be sending a warrant for Al Sanussi.
