Mauritania won't hand over Libyan leader

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NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania, Aug. 7 (UPI) -- The government of Mauritania said it wouldn't hand a former Libyan intelligence official over to Tripoli without certain conditions.

Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz said, while providing few specifics, that certain conditions must be met before former Libyan intelligence czar Abdullah al-Senussi was handed over to Tripoli, reports Bloomberg News.

Senussi was captured in Mauritania in November. Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, Moammar Gadhafi's son, is in Libyan custody. Both men are wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of committing crimes against humanity during last year's civil war.

The French government, for its part, sentenced the intelligence leader for his role in the downing of a commercial airliner over Niger in the 1980s.

Former intelligence official Abu Zeid Omar Dorda in June was charged in a Tripoli court with mobilizing security forces to fire on civilian demonstrators during an uprising that eventually led to NATO intervention and the October death of longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi.

The government in Tripoli maintains the right to try former regime officials in its national courts.