Convoy may be part of Gaddafi refuge plan

LIBYAN army vehicles have crossed the desert frontier into Niger in what may be a dramatic, secretly negotiated bid by Muammar Gaddafi to seek refuge in a friendly African state.

The Libyan rebels who overthrew Gaddafi two weeks ago said they also thought about a dozen other vehicles that crossed the border were carrying gold and cash looted from a bank in Gaddafi’s home town.

A customs official said that Gaddafi’s security chief was at the head of the convoy, which reportedly also contained armed supporters of the ousted dictator.

Niger officials informed the US ambassador that the convoy carried “a dozen or more” senior members of Gaddafi’s government, but gave no indication that Gaddafi himself was among them, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

The US has urged Niger to detain any Libyan officials in the convoy.

The military sources said a convoy of between 200 and 250 vehicles was escorted to the northern city of Agadez by the army of Niger, a poor and landlocked former French colony.

It might, according to a French military source, be joined by Gaddafi en route for Burkina Faso, which has offered him asylum.

A spokesman for Gaddafi had earlier said he was “in excellent health” and still in Libya.

France, Niger and Burkina Faso, as well as Libya’s new rulers and NATO, all denied knowing where Gaddafi was or of any deal to let him find refuge from Libya and the International Criminal Court, which wants to put him on trial.

French foreign ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said it was for Libyans to decide the venue but that Gaddafi would not be allowed to slip away quietly.

“He will have to face justice for all the crimes he has committed in the past 42 years,” he said.

Niger’s foreign minister, Bazoum Mohamed, said Gaddafi was not in the convoy. An aide to French President Nicolas Sarkozy said: “We have no specific information that would indicate that Gaddafi is there.”

That did not contradict a French military source who said the 69-year-old fugitive and his son Saif al-Islam might join the convoy later to head for Burkina.

France has taken a lead in the NATO action to back Libya’s uprising and, with its Western allies, would be likely to have the ability to track any sizeable convoy in the empty quarter.

But Niger’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Adani Illo, said surveillance over vast desert terrain was still hard, and that convoy of 250 vehicles would be “like a drop of water in an ocean”.

Gaddafi has has long friendships with the poor African states to the south, with which he shared some of Libya’s oil wealth.