AFP - Mauritania's former prime minister, Yahya Ould Ahmed Waghf, was freed Thursday after six months in detention in the wake of a military coup, an AFP correspondent witnessed.
   
Ould Ahmed Waghf, ousted by the putschists on August 6 last year, walked out of Nouakchott's biggest prison, Dar Naim, to be greeted by a large crowd. Three other detainees were released with him.
   
The release of Ould Ahmed Waghf was one of the conditions laid down by the opposition in the west African nation during negotiations on ending a political crisis triggered by the coup and a scheduled election.
   
The international community has called for the release of people jailed after the coup.
   
Pressure mounted ahead of the signing, due later Thursday, of a deal hammered out in Senegal's capital Dakar to end the political crisis by postponing a presidential poll until July 18 and forming a national unity government.