A judge in Lebanon has ordered the release on bail and imposed a travel ban on Hannibal Gaddafi, the youngest son of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who has been held for nearly a decade in pre-trial detention.
Lebanon’s National News Agency confirmed Gaddafi’s bail ruling on Friday in a case related to the kidnapping and disappearance of revered Lebanese Shia leader Musa al-Sadr in Libya.
The court’s decision was greeted with ridicule by Gaddafi’s lawyer Laurent Bayon.
The “release on bail is totally unacceptable in a case of arbitrary detention. We will challenge the bail,” Bayon told the AFP news agency.
Bayon also said his client “is under international sanctions” and could not pay the large bail fee.
“Where do you want him to find $11m?” Bayon asked.
Lebanese authorities arrested Gaddafi in 2015 and accused him of withholding information about the disappearance of al-Sadr in Libya in 1978 – a case which still grips public attention in Lebanon.
Al-Sadr was an iconic figure in Lebanon when he travelled to meet with then-Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Founder of the Amal Movement, which is now an ally of Hezbollah, al-Sadr went missing on the visit along with an aide and a journalist, and none have been heard from since.
Al-Sadr’s disappearance has sparked decades of theories and accusations of official involvement by Gaddafi – who was overthrown and killed in a 2011 uprising – and ties between the two countries have been strained since the disappearance.
Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, who succeeded al-Sadr at the head of the Amal Movement, has accused Libya’s new authorities of not cooperating on the issue of al-Sadr’s disappearance, an accusation Libya denies.
In what many see as a means of extracting answers as to al-Sadr’s fate in Libya, Hannibal Gaddafi has been held in prison in Lebanon since 2015 without trial.
His lawyer, Bayon, has noted that his client is now 49, meaning that he was around two years old at the time that al-Sadr disappeared.
After the judge’s decision on Friday, the al-Sadr family published a statement protesting the proposed release of Gaddafi and expressing their “surprise” at the bail ruling.
The family also said they would “not interfere today in [the judge’s] decision to release him”.
“The arrest or release of Hannibal Gaddafi is not our goal, but rather a mere legal procedure. Our primary issue is the disappearance of the imam [al-Sadr],” the family added.
In August, Human Rights Watch urged Lebanon to immediately release Gaddafi, saying he had been wrongly imprisoned on “apparently unsubstantiated allegations that he was withholding information” about al-Sadr.
Last week, an alarm was raised about the health of Gaddafi – who already suffers from depression – after he was hospitalised for abdominal pain.
Libyan authorities in 2023 formally asked Lebanon to release Gaddafi because of his deteriorating health after he went on a hunger strike to protest his detention without trial.
Libyan Prosecutor General Al-Sediq al-Sour sent the request to his Lebanese counterpart, Ghassan Oueidat, according to reports, and al-Sour reportedly said in his request that Lebanon’s cooperation in freeing Gaddafi could help reveal the truth regarding al-Sadr.
