Libya demands handover of Gaddafi spy chief Senussi

Libya has requested the handover of Muammar Gaddafi's intelligence chief Abdullah Senussi after his capture in Mauritania.

A spokesman for the new government in Tripoli "insisted" Senussi be extradited to Libya to face trial.

However, he is also sought by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of crimes against humanity.

France also wants to extradite him in connection with a bomb attack on a plane in 1989.

Abdullah Senussi was detained on Saturday as he arrived on an Air Morocco flight from Casablanca. He was carrying a forged Malian passport and is now under police interrogation in Mauritania, a Libyan government spokesperson confirmed.

"Clearly we are going to make a formal request to hand him over because he needs to stand trial in Libya, because he committed all these crimes against the Libyan people," Mustafa Abushagur, Libya's deputy prime minister, said on Saturday.

Mauritania has already said it wants to carry out its own investigation before considering any extradition requests.

Senussi was held at the airport in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, after flying in from Morocco using a false passport, officials said.

However, Mauritania has not yet provided any evidence of his arrest.

It is believed he is being held at the offices of the Mauritanian intelligence agency.

Senussi, 63, fled Libya last year as Colonel Gaddafi's regime began to crumble.

Senussi was the right-hand man and brother-in-law of Gaddafi, who was deposed from power and eventually killed in a nine-month uprising against his decades-long rule last year.

The 62-year-old spy chief, along with Gaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam, was indicted on suspicion of war crimes by the ICC last June and his whereabouts had been unknown since Tripoli, Libya's capital, fell to rebel forces last August.

The ICC indictment accuses Senussi of being an "indirect perpetrator of crimes against humanity of murder and persecution based on political grounds" committed in the eastern city and rebel stronghold of Benghazi.

Senussi's whereabouts had remained a mystery since the collapse of the Gaddafi regime as Tripoli fell last August. Security sources in Niger and Mali said in October that Senussi and several of his men passed through their territory, while Libya's new government erroneously announced his capture in November.