TRIPOLI: The daughter of Muammar Qaddafi’s former spy chief was arrested at a Tripoli hotel for entering Libya illegally, a Supreme Security Committee official said yesterday.

The official, who refused to be named, said Al-Unood Al-Senoussi, daughter of Abdullah Al-Senoussi and niece of Qaddafi’s wife Safiah, was detained by the military police on Saturday.

“Al-Unood was arrested at a central Tripoli hotel after she entered Libya from Algeria on a fake Libyan passport,” he told Reuters. He said the daughter, 18, was carrying a “large amount” of US dollars, but he did not say how much.

While her father faces charges of “crimes against Libyans” in Tripoli and is also wanted by the International Criminal Court in the Hague and by France, Al-Unood Al-Senoussi has not been accused of any crime, except illegally entering Libya, the official said.

Abdullah Al-Senoussi was arrested seven months ago after arriving with a falsified Malian passport on a flight to the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, from Morocco.

He was then handed to Libya by Mauritanian authorities last month, triggering a tussle between Libya, France and the ICC over who should try him.

The ICC has issued a warrant for Senoussi accusing him of crimes against humanity, including murder. France wants to try Senoussi in connection with a 1989 airliner bombing over Niger in which 54 of its nationals died.

Senoussi has also been linked to the 1988 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland of US passenger plane that killed 270 people. Diplomatic sources have said the United States was keen to question him about that.

Meanwhile, seven Iranian relief workers who had been taken hostage by an armed group in July in the Libyan city of Benghazi were freed on Saturday, a Libyan security source and the Libyan Red Crescent Association said.

The seven Iranian men arrived in Benghazi in late July as guests of the Libyan Red Crescent to help with relief work in the city. They were seized from their vehicle by an unknown armed group in the heart of Benghazi.

The security source said they were released about midday. It was not immediately clear who freed them, or why now.