Rights group urges Lebanon to free Qaddafi’s son
Human Rights Watch say that Lebanon has falsely charged Hannibal Qaddafi, son of Libya’s former dictator, Muammar Qaddafi, for eight years. They called for Lebanon to release him.
During an official visit to Libya in August 1978, Sadr, along with an aide and a journalist, went missing. Muammar Qaddafi was blamed by Beirut for the disappearances and was overthrown and killed in 2011. This resulted in strained ties between Libya and Lebanon.
In 2015, Hannibal Qaddafi was arrested. He was accused of withholding information about the Lebanese Shiite cleric imam Mussa Sadr.
However, the Human Rights Watch argue that Hannibal was only two years old when Sadr disappeared. Therefore, they accuse Lebanon of subjecting Hannibal to an “apparent arbitrary detention on spurious charges.”
In a statement, the group’s Hanan Salah said that Hannibal’s eight years pre-trail detention proves that Lebanon’s already strained judicial system is a mockery.
Salah explained that holding a person in pre-trail detention for many years just because of their possible association with the wrongdoer, is unlawful.
However, a Lebanese judicial official argued that the reports from the HRW are biased. According to the judicial official, the information was solely based on Hannibal Qaddafi’s defense team.
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Hannibal Qaddafi is “detained in a purely judicial matter,” the Lebanese judicial official explained. The official further explained that Hannibal was responsible for prisons during his father’s rule, including the one which imam was held.
In August, Beirut received a letter from Libya authorities demanding that they release Qaddafi. However, a judicial source told AFP that for Qaddafi to be released, Tripoli needed to reveal information about Sadr’s disappearance.
Later that Month, Nabih Berri, an Amal movement chief, accused Libya of failing to cooperate with Lebanese and concealing information about the case.
AFP
