The handover to Libya of Gaddafi's Black Box, his chief spymaster Abdallah Al-Senoussi, has stirred a hornet's nest, notes Gamal Nkrumah Does Libya really need another official inquiry to conclude that yet another of Muammar Gaddafi's close associates is the Devil Incarnate? Libya is up to arms over plans to the trial of Gaddafi's right-hand man Abdallah Al-Senoussi, Libya's chief intelligence spy and the brother-in-law of the slain late Libyan leader. Initially, it must be said, the fuss did not appear to faze him. As Al-Senoussi's plane landed in Libya, he looked in perfect health. Before the brouhaha he claimed that he knew precious little about the evils of the Gaddafi regime. The Libyan authorities' audacious gamble has raised eyebrows across the African continent and in Europe, particularly in Paris. Al-Senoussi had fled to Mauritania and was arrested by the authorities in the northwest African desert nation because he supposedly entered the country bearing a false passport masquerading as a Malian citizen. He was treated well by the Mauritanian authorities that refused to hand him over to the Libyan authorities. The Libyans were furious at the intransigence of Mauritania and after several foiled attempts to retrieve Senoussi decided to clinch a secret deal with the government of Mauritania that was reputed to have close connections to the Gaddafi regime. "This is deceit after all the guarantees we had been given by the Mauritanian government. I do not believe my father would be given a fair trial," protested a furious Al-Anoud Al-Senoussi, daughter of the extradited former Libyan spy chief under Gaddafi. "This is an outrage. I believe a secret deal between Nouakchott and the Libyan authorities has taken place, probably with the tacit connivance of France," she told Al-Ahram Weekly by telephone. The latter explanation rings true in the case of Al-Senoussi. The entire exercise was shrouded in secrecy. Al-Senoussi apparently was dragged against his will and forcibly boarded the special Libyan plane dispatched to the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott to return him to Libya. Even though both Tripoli and Nouakchott deny that Al-Senoussi's extradition entailed a financial bargain, it is interesting to note that Libya's Finance Minister Hassan Mokhtar bin Zaqlan was part of the Libyan delegation to Nouakchott that took custody of Al-Senoussi. The spike in violence in the country did not prevent Libya's newly empowered legislative body, the General National Congress (GNC) from electing Mohamed Al-Megaryef, founding member of the National Salvation Front, as its president. Yet, for all Megaryef's bravery, his audacious gamble in extraditing Al-Senoussi remains just that. With hindsight, both the Libyan authorities and Al-Senoussi are in a tight spot. Paris, too, knows that changing tack is politically unacceptable at this stage. These combined efforts should have two clear goals in mind. First, Libyans want a state that is functional and democratic and they appear to prefer Western-style multi-pluralism to the autocratic rule of their former strongman Gaddafi. They also crave for law and order and a credible justice system. Libyans undeniably want to see justice done. Al-Senoussi was regarded as the Black Box of the Gaddafi regime and they would like to make public the secrets he was privy to. Some voters in Libya increasingly deem Megaryef woebegone, even though he has just wrested the mantle of leadership. There is a widespread feeling, though, that Megaryef is a man of the people and that he will deliver. Al-Senoussi's extradition is not a fringe fascination among Libyans. Megaryef's election has done little to quell outrage among certain sections of the Libyan people, even though he seems to be a favourite with Libya's post-Gaddafi political establishment. This is an odd conundrum. Even by the standards of the post-Gaddafi Libyan political dynamics, the gap between fact and fiction yawned unusually wide this August. Take the curious blast that shook Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, on Wednesday 1 August. The whiff of high level treachery funnelled rumours of the growing power of the Green Resistance, an underground army of old guard Gaddafi loyalists. That morning a bomb struck the headquarters of military intelligence in Benghazi. Eyewitnesses claimed that there were no dead or injured. The Green Army claimed responsibility for the attack, for this surely was not the work of a suicide bomber. Some Benghazi residents insist that Al-Senoussi was instrumental in the brutal repression of the Benghazi revolt of February 2011 that sparked the Libyan uprising that toppled the Gaddafi regime. According to a statement issued by outgoing Libyan Prime Minister Abdel-Rahim Al-Keib, Al-Senoussi is to stand trial for the massacre of prisoners in 1996 as well as several acts of terrorism and human rights violations against innocent Libyan civilians. Al-Senoussi vigorously denies such claims and insists that his trial is politically motivated. Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy as well as current French President François Hollande claim that Al-Senoussi was the mastermind behind the downing of a French passenger airliner over the Sahara in 1989, UTA Flight 772. Paris is suspicious that French military intervention and political support for the NATO invasion of Gaddafi's Libya is meant to ostensibly enforce Security Council Resolution 1973, and to "bring the international community together to support Libya's transition from violent dictatorship and to help create the conditions where the people of Libya can choose their own future". Paris, Al-Senoussi's daughter told the Weekly that the statement read "Gaddafi must go immediately. We call on all his followers to leave him before it is too late. We call on all Libyans who believe that Gaddafi is leading Libya into a disaster to take the initiative now to organise the transition process. My father supported Gaddafi to the bitter end. He refused to defect like the others." Resolution 1973 formed the legal basis for the NATO-led coalition military intervention. Al-Senoussi's daughter believes that France is suspicious that the trial of her father would reveal secrets that implicate Sarkozy's France in a close security cooperation with Gaddafi and highlight financial irregularities during the latter years of Gaddafi's government.
