Tunisia has become the latest battleground over the fate of one of Libya's former leaders, ex-Prime Minister Al Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi.

On Tuesday a Tunisian appeals court reversed a decision that had freed the former prime minister.

The court instead approved a request by Libya's new military junta, the National Transitional Council (NTC), for the extradition of the country's former leader.

Last month the Tunisian court of appeals had decided to free Mahmoudi, in what has become one of the highest-profile Qaddafi-associate cases in the country.

The former prime minister, who served temporarily in the office from March to August, was involved in the talks with the United Nations over attempts to broker a ceasefire between former dictator Muammar Qaddafi and the opposition forces.

Mahmoudi fled to Tunisia when Qaddafi's compound was captured in the fall of Tripoli. He was subsequently arrested together with two of his aides in the southern town of Tameghza, near the Tunisian border with Algeria.

All three were convicted on charges of illegally entering the country without visas, and sentenced to six months in jail by the Tunisian government, which has also been recently elected following the "Arab Spring" uprisings that swept the region earlier this year.