Gadhafi's Spy Chief Sent Back to Libya

Al-Senoussi accused of having hand in Lockerbie bombing
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Sep 5, 2012 6:30 AM CDT
Gadhafi's Spy Chief Sent Back to Libya
This Sunday, Aug. 21, 2011 file photo shows Abdullah al-Senoussi.   (AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills, File)

The man accused of having helped orchestrate some of the worst crimes committed by Moammar Gadhafi's regime has been extradited back to Libya, according to a Mauritanian government statement. An unnamed official says Abdullah al-Senoussi, who ran Gadhafi's feared intelligence service, is bound for Tripoli. Libya, the International Criminal Court, as well as France had all asked to try the former intelligence chief, who is known as Gadhafi's "black box" because of his closeness to the ex-leader and his knowledge of the regime's alleged abuses.

He is accused of complicity in the 1988 bombing of a Pan Am airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, as well as the 1996 Abu Salim prison massacre of more than 1,200 prisoners. Al-Senoussi was arrested at Mauritania's international airport in March, where he showed up disguised as a Tuareg chieftain and was traveling on a fake passport. For months, Mauritania resisted calls to hand him over, insisting that their laws had been violated and that he should be tried on Mauritanian soil. Al-Senoussi has reportedly spent his five-month-long incarceration in Mauritania in a private villa, where he was allowed to exercise, watch TV, read the international press, and receive visits from his nephew, according to the official. (More Moammar Gadhafi stories.)

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