Lebanon court orders son of late Libyan leader Gaddafi freed on $11m bail

Hannibal Gaddafi, the youngest son of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has been imprisoned for almost ten years while awaiting bail, and has been subjected to a travel ban.

In a case involving the abduction and disappearance of revered Lebanese Shia leader Musa al-Sadr in Libya, the Lebanon’s National News Agency confirmed Gaddafi’s bail ruling on Friday.

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Laurent Bayon, Gaddafi’s attorney, made fun of the court’s decision.

In the event of arbitrary detention, the statement “release on bail is completely unacceptable.” We’ll raise a bail challenge,” Bayon told the AFP news agency.

Bayon added that his client “is facing international sanctions” and was unable to pay the substantial bail amount.

Where can you find $11 million for him? Question posed by Bayon.

Gaddafi was detained in Lebanon in 2015 after being charged with with with withholding information regarding the disappearance of al-Sadr in 1978. This case is still the subject of public scrutiny in Lebanon.

When Al-Sadr met with Muammar Gaddafi, the then-Libyan leader, Al-Sadr was a household name in Lebanon.

Al-Sadr, the founder of the Amal Movement, who is now an ally of Hezbollah, went missing with an aide and journalist, and no one has been contacted since.

Since Al-Sadr’s disappearance, there have been decades of theories and accusations that Gaddafi, who was overthrown and killed in a 2011 uprising, had been directly involved in the disappearance, and ties have strained between the two nations.

Nabih Berri, the leader of the Amal Movement and the parliament speaker of Lebanon, has accused Libya’s new leaders of not cooperating with the investigation into al-Sadr’s disappearance, a claim that Libya denies.

Hannibal Gaddafi has been imprisoned in Lebanon since 2015 without trial in what many believe will be a means of finding out what al-Sadr’s fate is in Libya.

His client, 49, was around two years old when al-Sadr disappeared, according to his attorney, Bayon.

The al-Sadr family released a statement on Friday protesting the judge’s decision and saying they were “surprised” by the bail decision.

The family added that they would “not interfere with the judge’s] decision to release him today.”

“We don’t want to release or arrest Hannibal Gaddafi; we want to do it.” The family said that the disappearance of the imam [al-Sadr] is our main concern.

Gaddafi was wrongly imprisoned in Lebanon in August because of “apparently unsubstantiated allegations that he was withholding information” about al-Sadr, according to Human Rights Watch.

After being taken for abdominal pain, Gaddafi, who already suffers from depression, was the subject of a health alarm last week.

After Gaddafi began a hunger strike to protest his detention without a trial, Libyan authorities in 2023 formally requested his release in light of his deteriorating health.