(Adnkronos) – Lebanese authorities have ordered the release – upon payment of an 11 million dollar bail – of Hannibal Gaddafi, one of the sons of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who has been detained for 10 years in Lebanon without ever being tried. His lawyer, Laurent Bayon, told the AFP news agency, specifying that his client intends to contest the bail since he is unable to pay the sum due to international sanctions still in force against the Gaddafi clan.
According to Lebanese authorities, Hannibal Gaddafi possesses important information about the mysterious disappearance in Libya in 1978 of the Shiite imam Moussa Sadr, for which they hold his father, Muammar Gaddafi, responsible. At the time of the events, Hannibal was only two years old.
“The investigating judge in the case of the kidnapping and disappearance of Imam Sadr has agreed to the release of Hannibal Gaddafi on 11 million dollars bail,” a Lebanese justice official confirmed, adding that the son of the former Libyan dictator is subject to a travel ban.
In the 2000s, Hannibal Gaddafi had legal troubles in France and Switzerland. After the fall of the Libyan regime, he took refuge in Syria, where he lived with his wife, a Lebanese model. In 2015, he was lured into Lebanon by armed men linked to the son of one of Moussa Sadr’s collaborators, who disappeared with him. Lebanese authorities freed him from his captors but immediately imprisoned him afterwards. Since then, he has remained in pre-trial detention without trial.
Last week, his lawyer reported that, during his solitary confinement, Hannibal Gaddafi had been hospitalized for several days and that his health conditions were “worrying”. Last August, Human Rights Watch called for his “immediate release”, denouncing a detention based on “apparently unfounded accusations”, according to which he would possess information on the Sadr case.
