The New Nation - Internet Edition

Reuters, Nouakchott

Mauritania's military junta on Sunday freed the country's ousted president Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi from house arrest, a politician supporting Abdallahi said. Abdallahi, toppled in an August 6 coup, was taken by security officers from his home town of Lemden, where he had been under house arrest since mid-November, to his home in the capital Nouakchott and was told he was being released, Moulay Eli Ould Ahmed told Reuters. A police official confirmed that police were given orders to take ousted President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi into custody and drive him to his home in the African country's capital, Nouakchott, where he was to be freed.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak the press.

A military junta deposed Abdallahi in a coup Aug. 6 and placed him under house arrest. Both the United States and France canceled aid to African country, demanding Abdallahi's release. The U.S. has also placed a travel ban on the leaders of the junta.

Bowing to the international pressure, the junta recently announced that the former president would be freed unconditionally before the end of the month. But the president's daughter says her father was never informed directly about the junta's plan, learning about it from press reports and from visiting diplomats.

For the first four months, the ruling junta kept Abdallahi under house arrest in a villa in the capital. They then transferred him to his native village of Lemden, located 150 miles from Nouakchott, where he was allowed to leave his house, but not the town.