SAINT DENIS, Reunion, March 29, 2008 (AFP) - Ousted Anjouan leader Mohamed Bacar and 22 of his supporters were in military custody Saturday on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, as France examines their demand for political asylum.

The ex-leader of the rebellious Comoros island left the courthouse earlier Saturday in a police van along with almost two dozen of his men, almost all soldiers.

They remain under guard awaiting 'the examination of their demand for political asylum' by French officials, a top local official in Reunion, Michel Theuil, told AFP.

It was unclear whether they would be returned to nearby Comoros should their asylum demand be rejected.

The 45-year-old renegade leader of Anjouan -- one of the Comoros Union's three islands -- was ousted by a joint military operation involving Comoran government forces and African Union troops from Sudan and Tanzania.

Bacar managed to flee Anjouan and find refuge in Mayotte, which is the fourth island in the tiny Indian Ocean archipelago and which opted to remain French when the rest of the Comoros acquired independence in 1975.

Bacar and his men were then detained in Reunion after being transferred overnight Thursday by French military plane.

During his address at an Arab summit in Damascus Saturday, Comoran President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi said that his country received military aid from Morocco to help crush the Anjouan rebellion.

'It is no secret that we won because Morocco provided all it could in military aid,' Sambi told delegates, urging them to 'help us build a new phase in the Comoros islands.'

Meanwhile, a Reunion criminal court dismissed charges against Bacar and his men for illegal entry to Mayotte and for carrying unauthorised weapons.

The court's move sparked criticism from the Comoran government and a protest outside the Saint Denis courthouse by some 100 Comorans who accused Paris of being in 'complicity' with Bacar.

Many Comoros residents suspect the former colonial power of covertly protecting Bacar, despite logistical support provided by France to the operation launched Tuesday.

'I'm not surprised, given the way in which he escaped justice,' Comoran Justice Minister Mourad Said Ibrahim said, responding to the news of the dismissed charges in Reunion.

He accused the French government of trying to 'humiliate the Comoran people.'

Clad in a polo shirt and beige shorts at the court hearing -- with most of his men barefoot -- Bacar told reporters he had a 'resolve of steel.'

Still, when asked whether he feared being sent back to Comoros, Bacar responded: 'To the Comoros, yes.'

Mohamed Abdou Madi, a former cooperation minister in Bacar's regime, was arrested in Anjouan on Friday, officials said.

A former Comoros charge d'affaires in Madagascar, he had teamed up with Bacar, becoming his spokesman for the last couple of months.

He was being held in the Jeje region, Mohamed Bacar Dossar, in charge of defence issues in the Comoros, told AFP from Mutsamudu, Anjouan's main city.

Also arrested was former candidate in the Comoros presidential election, Ibrahim Halidi Abdremane, who was also close to Bacar.

Another aide, Caabi Elchroutoui, was put under house arrest, said Dossar.

Comoran troops backed by Sudanese and Tanzanian African Union forces meanwhile kept searching the island for military and political aides of the former leader.