Human Rights Watch has called on Lebanese authorities to “immediately” release Hannibal Gaddafi, the son of the former Libyan leader, who has been held in pre-trial detention for eight years on charges the organization describes as ridiculous and fabricated.
The organization pointed out that nearly 80% of inmates in Lebanese prisons are held in pre-trial detention, some for many years without being charged.
The Lebanese Internal Security Forces, which oversee prison operations, arrested Hannibal Gaddafi in December 2015, alleging his connection to the disappearance of Imam Musa al-Sadr and his two companions in Libya after an official visit in August 1978.
According to one of Gaddafi’s lawyers, the Lebanese authorities accused Hannibal of “withholding information and subsequently interfering in the ongoing kidnapping crime” of Imam al-Sadr, despite the fact that Gaddafi’s son was only two years old at the time in 1978 and did not hold any senior official position upon reaching adulthood, according to the organization.
Human Rights Watch stated that “the presumed arbitrary detention of Hannibal Gaddafi on fabricated charges after spending eight years in pre-trial detention ridicules the already weak Lebanese judicial system.”
The organization added that Lebanese authorities have long exhausted any justification for continuing to detain Gaddafi and should drop the charges and release him.
The organization mentioned that in July 2023, it separately contacted Major General Imad Othman, the Director-General of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces, and Judge Zaher Hamadeh, the judicial investigator responsible for the case, requesting detailed information about Gaddafi’s judicial situation and health, but did not receive any response.
The defense team reported that Gaddafi went on a hunger strike from June to October as a protest against his arbitrary detention and the detention conditions which resulted in severe weight loss and frequent hospital admissions.
In 2015, unknown individuals kidnapped Gaddafi in Syria near the Lebanese border after being deceived into expecting an interview with a newspaper, according to reports. Instead, he was taken by armed men to Lebanon, where they tortured him and demanded information about the disappearance of Imam al-Sadr and a ransom, according to his lawyer. Gaddafi had been living in Syria with his family after fleeing Libya in the early days of the 2011 revolution that overthrew his father’s regime, having spent time in Algeria and Oman.
Lebanese authorities freed Gaddafi from his kidnappers, but according to reports, they arrested him days later and kept him detained at the Information Branch of the Internal Security Forces after Judge Hamadeh issued an arrest warrant accusing him of concealing information about the disappearance of Imam al-Sadr.
