“ Lebanon released Hannibal Gaddafi, the son of late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, on Monday, November 10, after nearly 10 years in prison for allegedly withholding information about a missing cleric.”, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
Source: Reuters with reference to the National News Agency of Lebanon
Hannibal Gaddafi was kidnapped in 2015 by militants in Syria, where he lived in exile with his Lebanese wife and children after his father was killed in the 2011 uprising that broke out in Libya.
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That same year, Lebanese authorities arrested him and accused him of withholding information about the fate of a Lebanese Shia Muslim cleric who disappeared with his companions during a trip to Libya in 1978.
Hannibal was only two years old when the imam disappeared, and as an adult he held no high office in Libya.
Human rights organizations condemned the circumstances of his detention, calling the charges “baseless.” In 2023, Gaddafi went on hunger strike to protest his imprisonment, after which his health deteriorated and he required hospitalisation.
Last month, the Lebanese judiciary ordered his release and set bail at $11 million. According to a Lebanese source in the court, his lawyers objected and the court reduced bail to about $900,000.
The updated decision also canceled Gaddafi’s travel ban.
“Gaddafi was released after his lawyers posted bail,” the National News Agency reported.
The Tripoli-based Libyan government of national unity of Abdulhamid al-Dbeyba thanked the Lebanese president and parliament speaker for their “cooperation that led to the release of Gaddafi.”
Reuters adds that the mysterious disappearance of the Muslim spiritual leader nearly half a century ago has sparked decades of mutual recriminations between Libya and Lebanon.
In its statement, the Government of National Unity of Libya welcomed “the sincere intentions of the Lebanese leadership to restore diplomatic relations between the two countries and develop cooperation in the political, economic and security spheres.”
We will remind:
In October 2011, the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, captured in the city of Sirte, died of wounds.
After the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2011, his son Seif al-Islam led the resistance to the Transitional National Council of Libya.
Later it became known that he was captured by supporters of the transitional government from the city of Zintan. In 2015, Seif al-Islam was sentenced to death.
Among the crimes of which Gaddafi’s son was accused, encouragement to rape, kidnapping, murder, embezzlement of public funds.
In 2016, the media reported that Seif al-Islam was granted amnesty and released. In March 2018, he nominated himself for the post of president of Libya.
Seif al-Islam Gaddafi asked the Russian authorities for support in the 2019 Libyan presidential elections.