Mauritania ready to hand over Gaddafi spy chief

Nouakchott:  Mauritania has agreed "in principle" to hand over Muammar Gaddafi's intelligence chief Abdullah Al Sanussi to Libya, but final details have yet to be clinched, Mauritanian sources said on Wednesday.

Libya is vying with France and the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) to try Gaddafi's former right-hand man, arrested in Mauritania on Friday as he arrived by plane in the capital Nouakchott with a false passport.

Libyan Deputy Prime Minister Mustafa Abu Shagour announced after talks with Mauritanian President Mohammad Ould Abdul Aziz yesterday that Abdul Aziz had given consent to extradite Al Sanussi, adding he would "soon be in a Libyan prison".

A private jet flew in overnight to Nouakchott airport. No exact identification was possible, but local diplomatic sources said they had been informed Libya was sending a plane that was due to depart again at around midday yesterday.

Mauritanian sources played down prospects of an early extradition.

"The principle of Al Sanussi's extradition to Libya has been agreed," said the source close to the Mauritanian presidency.

"What remains to be determined are details like the timing," the source added.

Separately, a Mauritanian security source said the West African state, an aid-reliant former French colony, acknowledged that other countries should have a say in Al Sanussi's fate.

"It's not just Mauritania and Libya that can settle this," said the source, expressing doubt that any transfer of Al Sanussi would take place yesterday.

Fair trial

The source declined to elaborate but several international human rights groups have doubted whether Al Sanussi, 62, would have a fair trial in Libya and say he would be better transferred to the ICC to face charges of crimes against humanity.

Abdul Aziz, an army general who seized power in 2008 and went on a year later to win elections decried by rivals as rigged, has enjoyed solid support from Paris that has helped him win international respectability and an IMF funding programme.

France wants Al Sanussi in connection with a 1989 airliner bombing over Niger in which 54 of its nationals died.