Mauritania has extradited to Mali a Malian national convicted of kidnapping three Spanish aid workers last year.
Mauritanian authorities say Omar Sid-Ahmed Ould Hamma was extradited late Monday. No further details were released.
Ould Hamma was sentenced in July to 12 years in prison for organizing the kidnapping of the aid workers and for handing them over to an al-Qaida-linked group in the region, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb.
The three Spanish aid workers were seized last November on a road that links the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, with the city of Nouadhibou to the north.
One of the captives was released in March, but the other two are still being held in an unknown location in the vast Sahara desert.
The region stretches through Mauritania, Mali, Algeria and Niger, all countries struggling to contain Islamist militant groups.
Article by VOA News