RCMP to oversee security for Gadhafi's N.L visit

The RCMP say they'll control security during Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's visit to St. John's, N.L.,next week.

"The RCMP will provide V.I.P security detail consistent with any head of state," said RCMP spokesman Sgt. Wayne Newell. "[We] decide the threat level. We decide the motorcade route, the use of RCMP assets to move him around and his entourage, and it will be under RCMP leadership."

Gadhafi is expected to arrive in St. John's with an entourage of up to 130 people, Newell said. Gadhafi travels with his own security team, but theMounties will decide where he goes and when.

"The decision would ultimately rest with the RCMP," said Newell. "It won't be a matter of him and his officials arriving on Canadian soil and going where they please. If he doesn't agree to [our] terms and conditions, then he doesn't come to the country."

Newell said it has not been decided whether Gadhafi's own security peoplewill carry weapons.

"Whether or not they will carry guns is still being negotiated," said Newell. "If they do, it would be under our terms and conditions as to what weapons they'll be allowed to carry. The number of rounds, that sort of thing, is completely under our control."

Gadhafi's planned visit to Newfoundland was confirmed Thursday by the Prime Minister's Office.

Gadhafi is scheduled to stop in St. John's on his way back to Libya from New York after his visit to the United Nations General Assembly, where he gave a 90-minute speech Wednesday.

"This is not an official visit to Canada," a written statement from PMO spokesman Dimitri Soudas said. "Prime Minister [Stephen] Harper has asked Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon to go to St. John's and meet the Libyan leader," Soudas wrote.