MUAMMAR Gaddafi's brother-in-law and spymaster general was dramatically captured yesterday, just a day after the dictator's son Saif was caught, in what were dubbed the "last acts" of a now-extinct regime.

Having both men in custody will boost hopes that they will reveal what they know about the Lockerbie bombing and other atrocities.

The last stand of intelligence chief Abdullah al Senussi came as Libyan rebels insisted they would try Saif rather than transfer him to International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague. Unlike the ICC, it is expected a Libyan court would have the power to impose the death penalty, and officials in the interim government yesterday indicated that was the punishment they would seek.

It is likely the rebels will also push for the death penalty for al Senussi, long known as Gaddafi’s brutal right-hand man and a hate figure for many in the country.

Last week Foreign Secretary William Hague revealed that M16 had foiled a Gaddafi plot earlier this year to murder rebel bosses and British diplomats by using suicide bombers. It is understood to have been masterminded by al Senussi.

In Libya he is held responsible for the notorious massacre of 1200 inmates at the Abu Salim prison in the mid-1990s.

A decade ago he was convicted in his absence in France of the 1989 bombing of a UTA passenger plane over Niger which

killed 170 people. As a former head of the country’s intelligence services he is likely to face pressure to reveal what he knows about the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, in which 270 people in died the worst terrorist atrocity over UK soil.

Like both Saif Gaddafi and his father, al Senussi had been indicted earlier this year by the ICC for alleged plans to kill protesters following February’s Arab Spring revolt.

Al Senussi rose to power after he married a sister of dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s wife in the 1970s. He is considered to have been one the dictator’s most brutal henchmen.

After a month on the run he was eventually tracked down at his sisters’ house in his hometown yesterday. Rebels said he had been surrounded at a remote desert homestead in the same area where Saif had been captured on Saturday.

A spokesman for Libya’s interim administration, the National Transitional Council (NTC), said last night local officials in the desert town of Sabha had confirmed Al Senussi’s capture.

The NTC has insisted it can offer a fair trial in Libya. But campaigners including Amnesty International have called for the rebels to stand aside and let the cases be tried by the ICC.

After 10 months of the Arab Spring, the region is still in the throes of a heady and unpredictable transformation. In Syria yesterday, two rocket-propelled grenades hit a ruling party building and in Egypt seven protesters were killed in Cairo’s central square.