A group of American, British and Irish citizens are pressuring their respective governments to prevent the impending execution of Libya’s former intelligence strongman. Abdullah al-Senussi, 65, led Libya’s intelligence services during the regime of the country’s late dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi. Last week, however, he was sentenced to death by a court in Tripoli for his role in “inciting genocide” during the 2011 civil war that toppled Gaddafi’s regime. American, British and Irish officials are being urged to intervene to stop Senussi’s execution, so that he can help shed light on Libya’s role in international terrorist plots in the 1980s and 1990s.
Senussi rose rapidly through the ranks of
Gaddafi’s regime in the 1970s after marrying the Libyan leader’s
sister-in-law. Eventually, he became one of Gaddafi’s most trusted
aides, escorting him on most international trips and seeing to the
medical needs of the dictator. Throughout that time he is believed to
have led at various times Libya’s internal security agency, its external
spy organization, and the country’s military intelligence agency. It is
unclear however, whether he actually held any official posts in the
Libyan government, especially after 1977, when Gaddafi abolished
official titles and declared that his country was a Jamahiriya —a “state
of the masses” not ruled by officials, but by “revolutionary” popular
councils and communes.
During Senussi’s reign, especially in the
1980s, Libya deepened its connections with militant groups in Africa,
the Middle East and Europe, prompting some European and American
officials to describe him as “the world’s most wanted man”. On Tuesday
of last month, Senussi was among nine former Gaddafi aides and officials
to be sentenced
to death by a court in the Libyan capital. They include one of
Gaddafi’s sons, Seif al-Islam al-Gaddafi, as well as the late Libyan
dictator’s Prime Minister, Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi. Ironically, the
sentence imposed on Gaddafi’s son cannot be implemented, as he is being
kept prisoner by a militia in western Libya, which has refused to
surrender him to the central government in Tripoli since 2011. Senussi
however, is being held in Tripoli, having been captured
at the Nouakchott International Airport in Mauritanian in March 2012 in
what is believed to have been a successful French-led intelligence
operation.
Critics of Libya’s past dealings with terrorist groups believe
that the jailed former spy director is aware of crucial details
relating to the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland,
which killed 270 people in 1988. He is also thought to possess
information relating to Libya’s support for the Provisional Irish
Republican Army. The militant group is said to have received training,
weapons and cash from the Libyan government in the 1980s and 1990s.
Victims of IRA operations and their families have continued to pressure
London to intervene to prevent Senussi’s execution since his
extradition to Libya from Mauritania in 2013. The Libyan government has
said that it intends to execute Senussi in September.
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