Gadhafi cancels Canada visit

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafihascancelled a planned visit to Canada next week.

A Canadian government official toldCBC News onSaturday that Gadhafi won't be landing in Newfoundland early next week to refuel his plane and stay for a night.

The Libyan leader was expected to make a one-day stopoverin St. John's.

The Associated Press has reported thathotel reservations for Gadhafi in St. John's have been cancelled and Libya's advance team has left.

The mayor of St. John's said he was surprised by the cancellation, adding it just deepens the mystery of the African leader's proposed visit.

"What I heard this morning was that if the RCMP were not able to take overhis security then he would not be allowed to leave the plane," MayorDennis O'Keefe told CBC News.

"The whole thing has been a bit of an enigma right from the very start."

On Thursday, the Prime Minister's Office confirmed that Gadhafi would be heading to St. John's for a quickunofficial visit onhis way back to Libya. GadhafiaddressedtheUN General Assembly in New York on Wednesday for the first time, giving arambling, disconnected speech that lasted about90 minutes.

Canada had planned to send Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon to meet with Gadhafi to express Canada's displeasure over the hero's welcome Libya gave to the Libyan nationalconvicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

All 259 people aboard Pan Am Flight 103 and 11 people on the ground died when a bomb blew up the plane over Scotland in 1988.

Gadhafi seized power in Libya after leading a coup in 1969 against King Idris I.

The West has, for years, accused him of supportinginternational terrorism. He managed to shed some of that isolation in 2003 when he announced he would dismantle his country's programs to buildchemical, biological or nuclearweapons.

That same year, Libya reached a political agreement with the United States and Britain to accept civil responsibility and pay up to $10 million per victim to relatives of those killed inthe Lockerbie bombing.