Jebali: Decision to send back Al Mahmoudi ‘irrevocable’

Tunis: Tunisia’s decision to extradite Libya’s former prime minister Baghdadi Al Mahmoudi back to his home country is definitive, Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali said on Friday.

“The decision to hand over Mr Mahmoudi is irrevocable,” he said, without providing a date for the extradition of the former premier, a stalwart of slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s fallen regime.

Lawyers for Al Mahmoudi, who was arrested in September, and rights groups have argued he will be executed if he returns to Libya, where an uprising last year ended more than four decades of Gaddafi’s dictatorship.

Libyan authorities have guaranteed that the former premier will get a fair trial, meeting Tunisia’s final condition for his extradition, the Tunisian President’s office said last month.

The presidency then said a committee of independent Tunisian political figures would be formed to oversee the extradition process and monitor promises to protect Al Mahmoudi’s rights after his transfer to Libya.

The ex-premier is the subject of two extradition requests from Tripoli.

Tunisia’s revolution in January last year toppled strongman Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali triggered the pro-democracy Arab Spring.