[Maghrebia] A Nouakchott court on Monday (March 21st) sentenced Malian national Abderrahmane Ould Meddou and Taleb Ould Ahmednah, an al-Qaeda member extradited from Senegal... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees...
, to five years in prison for the 2009 kidnapping of an Italian couple. Four months after their abduction in eastern Mauritania, Sergio Cicala, 65, and his Burkina Faso-born wife Philomene Kabore, 39, were freed by al-Qaeda cut-throats in Mali.