Hannibal Gaddafi, son of the former Libyan dictator, during a visit to Rome in 2011. (Credit: AFP)
BEIRUT — The Human Rights Watch (HRW) organization called in a statement published on Thursday for the immediate release of the son of Libya's former leader Muammar Gaddafi, Hannibal Gaddafi, whom Lebanese authorities have "wrongly imprisoned for nearly a decade."
Gaddafi, who has been held without trial in Lebanon since 2015, is being prosecuted by the Lebanese judiciary for allegedly concealing information about the disappearance of prominent religious Lebanese figure Musa al-Sadr. The popular Shiite imam and the founder of the Amal Movement went missing during an official visit to Libya in September 1978. Hannibal Gaddafi — who was only two years old at the time of Sadr's disappearance in 1978 — was kidnapped at the Syrian border in 2015, then seized by the Internal Security Forces (ISF) during a raid by their intelligence services.
"The authorities should provide Gaddafi with appropriate compensation for holding him arbitrarily and investigate and hold to account those responsible for his ordeal," HRW said in its statement.
The international NGO said that "al-Sadr’s fate remains a sensitive political issue in Lebanon," adding that "judicial authorities have not taken any steps to bring Gaddafi to trial or provided a legal justification for his continued detention."
Cited in the statement, Lebanese researcher Ramzi Kaiss, from HRW, said that “Gaddafi’s case is emblematic of a fractured judicial system that has lacked independence and is susceptible to political interference by Lebanon’s powerful factions."
According to the news release, an HRW researcher visited Gaddafi on Aug. 12, 2025, at the ISF's Information Branch Headquarters in Beirut, where he is being held, and met with him for an hour. It was the first visit to Gaddafi by an international human rights organization while in Lebanese detention.
Windowless cell, health condition
The researcher did not tour the prison or visit Gaddafi’s cell, which, according to Gaddafi, is a windowless but ventilated room underground. Gaddafi said he receives enough food and has been able to get basic healthcare, but that he experiences “systemic weakness due to malnutrition and vitamin deficiency.” He also said that he has "suffered mental health consequences due to his long-term isolation in a cell below ground, without natural sunlight, and lack of regular access to his family."
Gaddafi added that his physical health has also deteriorated in recent years, including "back pain, a broken nose and severe head pain from a skull fracture he sustained while being tortured by the armed people who initially kidnapped him along the Syrian border in late 2015."
He told HRW that he has access to his legal team, including a French lawyer, but that his wife and children were denied entry to Lebanon and deprived of contact with him for the first seven years after his arrest, until 2022, when authorities granted them access. According to him, family visits are currently permitted, but “heavily restricted,” and there is “no regular or guaranteed schedule or access." Additionally, Gaddafi said that requests to access his legal team and family “are often denied, delayed for days or ignored without justification.”
Letters requesting information on Gaddafi’s judicial status
HRW mentioned in its statement that it wrote in April 2025 to Lebanon’s Interior Minister Ahmed al-Hajjar, Justice Minister Adel Nassar and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, requesting detailed information on Gaddafi’s judicial status and calling for his release. Moreover, it had also previously written to the ISF former director-general Imad Othman, and to Judge Zaher Hamadeh, the judicial investigator in charge of the case, in July 2023, requesting detailed information on Gaddafi’s judicial status and health, but did not receive a response to any of the letters.
Moreover, Hamadeh has not acted upon calls to release Gaddafi despite repeated requests, most recently by one of his lawyers, Charbel Milad al-Khoury, on June 9, according to HRW.
Legally speaking, the NGO said that the "recent adoption by Lebanon’s Parliament of a law organizing the judiciary promises wide-ranging judicial reforms, yet unaddressed gaps continue to threaten the independence of the judiciary and make it susceptible to continued political interference."
In July, the Libyan Government of National Unity's Justice Ministry criticized Lebanese authorities for a lack of cooperation on the Hannibal Gaddafi case. A month earlier, Gaddafi's family announced that he had begun a new hunger strike after Lebanese authorities ignored the requests of the Libyan Justice Ministry calling for his release, which had sent a "memorandum" to Lebanese judicial authorities to that effect.
