Feared Gaddafi intel chief held

Following the killing of Muammar Gaddafi a month ago,his son and Senussi had been the surviving Libyans on the wanted list of the International Criminal Court. Ghoga said the NTC had agreed to resist requests from the ICC to hand them over.

Senussi inspired fear and hatred among ordinary Libyans for decades. He built up a reputation as the brutal enforcer of Gaddafis will when he was the chief of internal security during a deadly purge of regime opponents in the early 1980s. Many Libyans also held Senussi responsible for the 1996 killing of some 1,200 inmates at Tripolis Abu Salim prison.

Senussi was a colonel in Gaddafis armed forces and the powerful director of Libyas intelligence apparatus after previous posts as head of military intelligence and deputy chief of the external intelligence agency.

He was one of several Libyan officials who were convicted,in absentia,in a French court in 1999 over the bombing of a French airliner. The plane came down in Niger the previous year,killing all 170 people on board.

A leaked US embassy cable from 2008 described Senussi,who is married to a sister of Gaddafis wife,as playing a significant role as an adviser to Seif. Senussi is a member of the Magarha tribe,to which Abdel Basset al-Megrahi,the man convicted and jailed for helping blow up Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988,also belongs. US cables said Senussi asked US diplomats to help smooth the way for al-Megrahis release from a Scottish jail.