Gaddafi last tracked heading south: top Libyan official

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Muammar Gaddafi was last tracked heading for Libya's southern border, the man leading the hunt for the deposed leader told the media, and French and Niger military sources said scores of vehicles carrying pro-Gaddafi forces had crossed into Niger.

Hisham Buhagiar, who is coordinating efforts to find Gaddafi, said reports indicated he may have been in the region of the southern village of Ghwat, some 300 km north of the border with Niger, three days ago.

"He's out of Bani Walid I think. The last tracks, he was in the Ghwat area. People saw the cars going in that direction .... We have it from many sources that he's trying to go further south, toward Chad or Niger," Buhagiar said in an interview on Tuesday.

French and Niger military sources said a convoy of up to 250 vehicles was escorted to the northern city of Agadez by the army of Niger, a poor and landlocked former French colony. It might, said a French military source, be joined by Gaddafi en route to adjacent Burkina Faso, which has offered him asylum.

The United States said it believed the convoy was carrying senior members of Gaddafi's entourage and urged Niger to detain anyone liable for prosecution for alleged crimes committed during the uprising against the deposed Libyan leader.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Tuesday that Gaddafi was ‘on the run’ but asked later on the Charlie Rose show if he thought he was still in Libya he said:

"You know, I don't know. I think he's been taking a lot of steps to make sure that in the end he could try to get out if he had to, but as to where, when, and how that'll take place, we just don't know."

Gaddafi's spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said he had not left.

"He is in Libya. He is safe, he is very healthy, in high morale," he told the media by telephone from an undisclosed location.

Anti-Gaddafi forces that overthrew the long-serving ruler two weeks ago said they also thought about a dozen other vehicles that crossed the border may have carried gold and cash apparently looted from a branch of Libya's central bank in Gaddafi's home town.

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 go abroad or find refuge from Libyans and the International Criminal Court (ICC), which wants to put him on trial for war crimes.

"To my knowledge, there have not been hundreds of vehicles that crossed into Niger," Niger's Interior Minister Abdou Labo told a news conference.

He did confirm reports that Gaddafi's security chief Mansour Dhao had been allowed to enter the country. He said this was on humanitarian grounds and that Dhao was the only Libyan official received.