Lebanon releases Gaddafi’s son Hannibal after decade in detention

BEIRUT,— Hannibal Gaddafi, the youngest son of Libya’s late leader Muammar Gaddafi, was released Monday after nearly ten years in detention in Lebanon without a trial, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.

Gaddafi was kidnapped in 2015 by militants in Syria, where he had been living in exile with his Lebanese wife and children following his father’s death during Libya’s 2011 uprising.

Lebanese authorities took him into custody that same year, accusing him of withholding information about the disappearance of Imam Musa al-Sadr, a prominent Lebanese Shi’ite cleric who vanished along with two companions during a visit to Libya in 1978.

Hannibal Gaddafi was only two years old at the time of Sadr’s disappearance and held no official government position in Libya as an adult.

Human rights groups criticized his detention, describing the charges as baseless. In 2023, he staged a hunger strike to protest his confinement, which led to a decline in his health and required hospitalization.

According to a Lebanese judicial source, the judiciary ordered Gaddafi’s release last month, setting bail at $11 million.

His defense lawyers appealed, resulting in the court reducing the bail to approximately $900,000 and lifting his travel restrictions. The National News Agency confirmed that Gaddafi’s release followed payment of the bail.

The Tripoli-based Government of National Unity, led by Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah, thanked Lebanon’s president and parliament speaker for their role in facilitating the release.

In a statement, the GNU noted the significance of the event for Libya-Lebanon relations and praised “the sincere intentions expressed by the Lebanese leadership to reactivate diplomatic relations between the two countries and to develop cooperation in political, economic, and security matters.”

The disappearance of Imam Sadr remains a sensitive issue nearly five decades later, and it has long been a source of tension between Lebanon and Libya.

The GNU emphasized that Hannibal Gaddafi’s release could serve as a step toward strengthening ties and increasing collaboration between the two governments.

(With files from Reuters)