Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s son and onetime heir apparent Seif al-Islam was yesterday poised to cross into Niger along with his father’s ex-intelligence chief, a Tuareg official said.

The two are the top most wanted fugitives from the slain despot’s ousted circle, who are wanted by the International Criminal Court and had been widely expected to seek refuge in Niger following Gaddafi’s death last week.

Libya’s southern neighbour, which for years was one of the west African countries that benefited most from Gaddafi’s largesse, is already sheltering dozens of former regime officials, including another one of Gaddafi’s sons.

Seif “is near the Niger border, he hasn’t entered Niger yet but he’s close,” a local official from the northern Niger’s Agadez region told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“It appears he is being escorted by former Tuareg fighters but I am not yet able to confirm this,” the official added. The local official said that Abdullah al-Senussi, a former intelligence chief and Gaddafi’s brother-in-law, was also approaching the border with Niger.

“Both of them are near the Niger border, they can’t be very far from each other,” he said.

In June, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants against Gaddafi, Seif and Senussi for “crimes against humanity” allegedly committed by troops under their command as they quelled the uprising against his regime.

In September Interpol issued a “red notice” for the trio. A Niger government source said on Saturday that Senussi, 62, had been spotted in northern Niger, but that his presence in the country was “not yet officially established.”

In Libya’s eastern city of Benghazi, a senior official of the National Transitional Council, interim oil and finance minister Ali Tarhuni told reporters that Seif posed no danger to the new regime.

“Seif al-Islam is not a threat. His father, his army, his mercenaries have been conquered,” Mr Tarhuni said.