TUNIS - Tunisia's decision to extradite Libya's former Prime Minister Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi back to his home country is definitive, Prime Minister Hamadi Jebali said on Friday.
"The decision to hand over Mr. Mahmoudi is irrevocable," he said, without providing a date for the extradition of the former premier, a stalwart of slain Libyan leader Moamer Gathafi's fallen regime.
Jebali insisted that the Tunisian Constitution of 1959, imposing the signature of the president of the Republic for the decisions of extradition of the people wanted by justice outside Tunisia, has been suspended since the ouster of former president Ben Ali and is not in force any more.
He added “the Administrative Court certified to us that the signature of the president of the Republic was not, from now on, essential for the extradition of Baghdadi Mahmoudi”.
According to Jebali, “the Libyan government provided oral and written guarantees certifying the respect of human rights as well as a fair trial for Mahmoudi”.
Lawyers for Mahmoudi, who was arrested in September, and rights groups have argued he will be executed if he returns to Libya, where a February 2011 uprising ended more than four decades of Gathafi's dictatorship.
Libyan authorities have guaranteed that former premier will get a fair trial, meeting Tunisia's final condition for his extradition, the Tunisian president's office said last month.
The presidency then said a committee of independent Tunisian political figures would be formed to oversee the extradition process and monitor promises to protect Mahmoudi's rights after his transfer to Libya.
The ex-premier is the subject of two extradition requests from Tripoli.
Tunisia's January 2011 revolution ousting strongman Zine el Abidine Ben Ali triggered the pro-democracy Arab Spring.
