The Lebanese judiciary on Friday ordered the release of Hannibal Gaddafi, son of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, after ten years of detention without trial, in exchange for a bail of $11 million, while prohibiting him from traveling abroad.
A judicial official stated that “the investigative judge in the case of the disappearance of Imam Musa al-Sadr, Judge Zahir Hamada, approved the release of Hannibal Gaddafi in return for the bail,” noting that Gaddafi remains banned from leaving Lebanon.
Hannibal Gaddafi, married to a Lebanese model, was arrested in December 2015 on charges of “concealing information” regarding the disappearance of the Lebanese Shia Imam Musa al-Sadr and two companions during a visit to Libya on August 31, 1978, when his father was in power.
The release decision came after his interrogation today by the investigative judge.
In a related context, Human Rights Watch had called on Lebanese authorities in a report published last August to “immediately” release Hannibal Gaddafi, considering him detained “based on allegations presumed to be baseless concerning withholding information about the disappearance” of Imam al-Sadr.
Lebanese authorities accuse Muammar Gaddafi of being behind the mysterious disappearance of Imam al-Sadr and his companions, and Hannibal was only two years old at the time. Muammar Gaddafi was killed in 2011 during the popular uprising that ended his rule, while his son Hannibal was a political refugee in Syria before being lured to Lebanon by a group led by former MP Hassan Yaacoub, whose father Sheikh Muhammad Yaacoub disappeared along with al-Sadr.
