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Arrests sought as convoys carry #Gaddafi insiders to Niger : Seattle Times Newspaper: bit.ly/nd57i5 #Libya
BENGHAZI, Libya — As members of the ousted government of Moammar Gadhafi rolled into Niger with gold, jewels, cash and other state property on Tuesday, the U.S. said it had asked Niger to arrest those who could be prosecuted and return the property to the people of Libya.
Other officials said the U.S. is playing an active role in the manhunt for Gadhafi, together with Britain and France, which have military advisers on the ground. Raising its profile after trying to "lead from behind," the Obama administration made clear it would make every effort to block Gadhafi's exit to any neighboring country.
Two convoys of 10 and 12 four-wheel-drive vehicles, respectively, crossed the Sahara Desert in the past two days, said Shamsaddin ben Ali, a spokesman for the revolutionary regime that overthrew the dictator, who was in power for 42 years.
He said only Niger would know for sure if Gadhafi was on board, and the National Transitional Council had asked its southern neighbor to seize the occupants and hand them over to Libya. Niger's foreign minister has denied that Gadhafi was on board.
"We hear they're carrying a lot of gold," ben Ali told McClatchy Newspapers.
In Washington, U.S. officials said they are actively attempting to track Gadhafi but do not believe he was aboard the convoys that reached Niger.
A dozen or more former senior Gadhafi regime officials were on the convoys that crossed the border, said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland. Gadhafi was not believed to be among the former officials, who appeared to be former military officers, she said.
The U.S. ambassador to Niger, Bisa Williams, in a meeting with Nigerian officials called on Niger to detain any of the former senior officials who "may be subject to prosecution, to ensure that they confiscate any weapons that are found, and to ensure that any state property of the government of Libya, money, jewels, et cetera, also be impounded so that it can be returned to the Libyan people," said Nuland. "I think all of them would be subject to the U.N. travel ban, which is why we're working closely with the government of Niger."
The U.S. doesn't have "any evidence that Gadhafi is anywhere but in Libya at the moment," she said.
Another U.S. official, who requested anonymity in order to discuss the issue, put it this way: "He obviously knows we're trying to find him."
Gadhafi's current location is only one of the mysteries swirling around the former Libyan leader. The bigger question is which foreign country would be likely to offer sanctuary, in light of an arrest warrant issued by the United Nations' International Criminal Court against Gadhafi, his son Seif al-Islam and Abdullah al-Senoussi, his espionage chief, after an indictment for crimes against humanity in suppressing the national uprising.
To many Libyans, it appeared that a deal was in the works under which Gadhafi would be allowed to escape abroad and in return would instruct his loyalists to lay down their arms, but there was no evidence that this was the case.
Meanwhile, officials of the National Transitional Council sought in vain to negotiate the peaceful handover of Sirte, Gadhafi's hometown on the Mediterranean coast; of Bani Walid, a town of 70,000 southeast of Tripoli, the capital; and of Sabha, a garrison town deep in the Sahara — all strongholds for Gadhafi loyalists — before its ultimatum runs out Saturday.
