Post date: Mar 17, 2012 1:25:58 PM
TRIPOLI, LIBYA (FILE - AUGUST 2011) (REUTERS - Libya's former spy chief, Abdullah al-Senussi, inspired fear and hatred in ordinary Libyans for decades as Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi's right hand man and news of his arrest in Mauritania on Saturday (March 17) was met with cheers in the Libyan capital Tripoli.
Mauritanian authorities arrest Muammar Gaddafi's chief of intelligence Abdullah al-Senussi as he was entering the country, Mauritania's state news agency says.
Senussi is wanted on charges of crimes against humanity by the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC).
If confirmed, his arrest will put an end to months of uncertainty over his whereabouts.
Official Mauritanian agency AMI said Senussi was arrested late on Friday as he arrived at the airport in the West African state's capital Nouakchott on a regular flight from Casablanca in Morocco. It said he was bearing a falsified Malian passport.
Mauritania has not signed the Rome Statute governing the ICC and authorities were not immediately available to confirm the arrest or comment on what they would do with Senussi, the last significant former Gaddafi regime figure still at large.
The ICC has charged Senussi and Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam as being "indirect co-perpetrators" of murder and persecution. Saif al-Islam was captured disguised as a Bedouin in the Sahara in November is awaiting trial in Libya on rape and murder charges. Libya's National Transitional Council says he will get a fair hearing but his supporters want him sent to The Hague.
"This is the happiest moment for Libyans, I wish we had arrested him here. No matter how much we subject him to it will not be sufficient revenge for what Senussi did," said a Libyan citizen Al Amory.
"I congratulate the Libyan people and the news of the arrest of Senussi made us happy because this man has killed a lot of people and he should be punished for his crimes like other killers," said al Tayeb Abidi, another resident of Tripoli.
"Senussi is Gaddafi's black box, he has a lot of information and he is the one who killed 1200 prisoners, he has blood on his hands and he should be brought here and tried in Libya," said Mustafa Jhyma, from Benghazi.
The case of Senussi may revive interest in international incidents long shrouded in mystery, from the days in the 1980s and 90s when Gaddafi's Libya waged undercover war on the West. Senussi's name has been linked with the Lockerbie bombing of 1988, while France has said it wants to try Senussi over a 1989 airliner bombing over Niger that killed 170 people including 54 French nationals.