TIMELINE-Mauritanian junta releases ousted president

Dec 21 (Reuters) - Mauritania's military junta on Sunday freed from house arrest ousted President Sidi Mohamed Ould Cheikh Abdallahi, who vowed to fight to return to the office he lost in a bloodless coup in August. [ID:nLL345249]

The generals who overthrew Abdallahi, the first democratically elected president of the west Saharan Islamic state, had said this month they would release him as part of negotiations to head off threatened European Union sanctions.

Here is a timeline of events in Mauritania since independence:

November 1960 - Independence won from France as the Islamic Republic of Mauritania with Moktar Ould Daddah as president.

1964 - Daddah proclaims a one-party state and the next year all parties merge to form the Parti du Peuple Mauritanien.

1966 & 1971 - Daddah is re-elected as president.

1975 - Mauritania is declared an Islamic Socialist Republic.

July 1978 - Daddah is deposed in a bloodless coup by Moustapha Ould Mohamed Salek who assumes absolute power as president in March 1979.