BEIRUT — Libya’s judicial authorities have formally requested Lebanon to launch one of many late dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s sons, held with out prices in Lebanon since 2015 due to his deteriorating well being, officers stated Monday.
The well being of Hannibal Gadhafi has been deteriorating since he went on starvation strike on June 3, to protest his detention with out trial. He was taken to hospital no less than twice since then and has been solely consuming small quantities of water.
In accordance with two Lebanese judicial officers, Libya’s prosecutor basic Al-Sediq al-Bitter, despatched a request earlier this month to his Lebanese counterpart, Ghassan Oueidat, concerning Hannibal Gadhafi. The officers spoke to The Related Press on situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to speak to the media.
The notice said that Lebanon’s cooperation on this matter might assist reveal the reality concerning the destiny of a distinguished Lebanese Shiite cleric, Moussa al-Sadr, who went lacking in Libya in 1978.
It questioned why Gadhafi was being held and requested that he be both handed over to Libya or be allowed to return to Syria, the place he had been residing in exile along with his Lebanese spouse, Aline Skaf, and kids till he was kidnapped and delivered to Lebanon eight years in the past.
The Lebanese prosecutor then referred the case to Zaher Hamadeh, the investigative choose within the lacking cleric’s case, who’s learning the Libyan request and would reply in time.
Hannibal Gadhafi has been detained in Lebanon since 2015 after he was kidnapped by Lebanese militants demanding data on the whereabouts of the cleric. Lebanese police later introduced it had picked up Gadhafi from town of Baalbek in northeastern Lebanon, the place he was being held. He has since been held in a Beirut jail.
The disappearance of al-Sadr in 1978 has been a long-standing sore level in Lebanon. The cleric’s household believes he should be alive in a Libyan jail, although most Lebanese presume al-Sadr is {dead}. He could be 94 years {old}.
He was the founding father of the Amal group, Arabic for “hope,” and an acronym for the militia’s Arabic identify, the Lebanese Resistance Brigades. The group later fought in Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil warfare. Lebanon’s highly effective Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri heads the group.
Most of al-Sadr’s followers are satisfied that Moammar Gadhafi ordered al-Sadr killed in a dispute over Libyan funds to Lebanese militias.
Libya has maintained that the cleric and his two touring companions left Tripoli in 1978 on a flight to Rome and instructed he was a sufferer of an influence battle amongst Shiites.
Moammar Gadhafi was killed by opposition fighters throughout Libya’s 2011 rebellion turned civil warfare, ending his four-decade rule of the North African nation.
Hannibal Gadhafi, who was born two years earlier than al-Sadr disappeared, fled to Algeria after his father was toppled and Tripoli fell to opposition fighters, alongside along with his mom and several other different family. He later made it to Syria the place he was given political asylum and stayed there till he was kidnapped.
Syrian authorities on the time blasted Hannibal Gadhafi’s seizure “by an armed gang” and have been demanding he be returned to Syria.
The late Moammar Gadhafi had eight youngsters from two marriages. Most of them performed vital roles in his regime. His son Muatassim was killed similtaneously Gadhafi was captured and slain. Two different sons, Seif al-Arab and Khamis, had been killed earlier on within the rebellion.
Seif al-Islam, the one-time inheritor obvious to his father, has been in Libya since his launch from detention there in 2017. Gadhafi’s son Mohammed and daughter Aisha reside in Oman. Al-Saadi, a former soccer participant, was launched from jail in Libya in 2021 after being jailed following repatriation from Niger in 2014.