Hannibal Gaddafi, youngest son of Muammar Gaddafi, has been held for practically a decade with out trial in Lebanon.
Published On 18 Oct 2025
A decide in Lebanon has ordered the discharge on bail and imposed a journey ban on Hannibal Gaddafi, the youngest son of the late Libyan chief Muammar Gaddafi, who has been held for practically a decade in pre-trial detention.
Lebanon’s National News Agency confirmed Gaddafi’s bail ruling on Friday in a case associated to the kidnapping and disappearance of revered Lebanese Shia chief Musa al-Sadr in Libya.
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The courtroom’s choice was greeted with ridicule by Gaddafi’s lawyer Laurent Bayon.
The “launch on bail is completely unacceptable in a case of arbitrary detention. We will problem the bail,” Bayon informed the AFP information company.
Bayon additionally stated his shopper “is beneath worldwide sanctions” and couldn’t pay the massive bail payment.
“Where would you like him to seek out $11m?” Bayon requested.
Lebanese authorities arrested Gaddafi in 2015 and accused him of withholding details about the disappearance of al-Sadr in Libya in 1978 – a case which nonetheless grips public consideration in Lebanon.
Al-Sadr was an iconic determine in Lebanon when he travelled to fulfill with then-Libyan chief Muammar Gaddafi.
Founder of the Amal Movement, which is now an ally of Hezbollah, al-Sadr went lacking on the go to together with an aide and a journalist, and none have been heard from since.
Al-Sadr’s disappearance has sparked a long time of theories and accusations of official involvement by Gaddafi – who was overthrown and killed in a 2011 rebellion – and ties between the 2 international locations have been strained because the disappearance.
Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, who succeeded al-Sadr on the head of the Amal Movement, has accused Libya’s new authorities of not cooperating on the problem of al-Sadr’s disappearance, an accusation Libya denies.
In what many see as a method of extracting solutions as to al-Sadr’s destiny in Libya, Hannibal Gaddafi has been held in jail in Lebanon since 2015 with out trial.
His lawyer, Bayon, has famous that his shopper is now 49, which means that he was round two years outdated on the time that al-Sadr disappeared.
After the decide’s choice on Friday, the al-Sadr household revealed a press release protesting the proposed launch of Gaddafi and expressing their “shock” on the bail ruling.
The household additionally stated they’d “not intervene at the moment in [the judge’s] choice to launch him”.
“The arrest or launch of Hannibal Gaddafi is just not our objective, however quite a mere authorized process. Our main difficulty is the disappearance of the imam [al-Sadr],” the household added.
In August, Human Rights Watch urged Lebanon to instantly launch Gaddafi, saying he had been wrongly imprisoned on “apparently unsubstantiated allegations that he was withholding data” about al-Sadr.
Last week, an alarm was raised concerning the well being of Gaddafi – who already suffers from melancholy – after he was hospitalised for belly ache.
Libyan authorities in 2023 formally requested Lebanon to launch Gaddafi due to his deteriorating well being after he went on a starvation strike to protest his detention with out trial.
Libyan Prosecutor General Al-Sediq al-Sour despatched the request to his Lebanese counterpart, Ghassan Oueidat, in accordance with stories, and al-Sour reportedly stated in his request that Lebanon’s cooperation in liberating Gaddafi may assist reveal the reality relating to al-Sadr.
