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| Mauritania frees deposed leader | Mauritania frees deposed leader |
| (10 minutes later) | |
| Mauritania's deposed President, Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, has been released from house arrest by security forces who overthrew him in August. | Mauritania's deposed President, Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, has been released from house arrest by security forces who overthrew him in August. |
| He was taken from his home town of Lemden, where he had been under house arrest, to his house in the capital, Nouakchott, where he was freed. | He was taken from his home town of Lemden, where he had been under house arrest, to his house in the capital, Nouakchott, where he was freed. |
| There has been intense international pressure on the coup leaders to return the country to democracy. | There has been intense international pressure on the coup leaders to return the country to democracy. |
| France and the US had cancelled their aid, pending Mr Abdallahi's release. | France and the US had cancelled their aid, pending Mr Abdallahi's release. |
| The African Union also suspended the country following the 6 August coup. | |
| Mr Abdallahi became Mauritania's first democratically elected leader in 2007 after a coup two years earlier, partly instigated by General Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz. | |
| On 6 August, Mr Abdallahi, as president, tried to dismiss four senior army officers, including Gen Abdelaziz, the head of the presidential guard, who responded by launching the coup. | |
| It came after a fortnight of political crisis following a vote of no confidence in the cabinet. | |
| Gen Abdelaziz appointed a transitional government to stay in power until new elections, to be organised in late 2009. | |
| Mauritania has a long history of coups, with the military involved in nearly every government since its independence from France in 1960. |