Hannibal Gaddafi in 2005. (Credit: Morten Juhl/AFP)
BEIRUT — Justice Council Investigative Judge Zaher Hamadeh ordered the release of Hannibal Gaddafi, son of late Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, on a $11 million bail on Friday, the detainee’s lawyer told L’Orient Today.
Ines Harrak, coordinator and communications officer for Gaddafi’s defense team, said that a request would be filed to reduce the sum. “Hasn’t he already paid enough by losing part of his life in prison for 10 years?” Harrak argued.
She added that Gaddafi has been separated from his three children — two of whom are minors — and she questioned how the bail could even be paid as he remains under international sanctions.
One of Gaddafi’s Lebanese lawyers, when asked to comment on the price of bail, cited an Arabic proverb: “He who does not want to marry off his daughter demands a high dowry.” Meaning, when someone does not wish to carry out a request, they create obstacles to avoid doing so.
Gaddafi, whose wife is Lebanese, was arrested in Lebanon in December 2015 on charges of “concealing information” in connection with the disappearance of Imam Musa Sadr and his two companions, journalist Abbas Badreddine and Sheikh Mohammad Yaacoub, in Libya in August 1978.
The case took a new turn — the first in a decade — when the Badreddine family, a civil party in the case, approved Gaddafi’s most recent request for release, submitted last June.
Gaddafi was kidnapped in the Bekaa Valley on Dec. 11, 2015, by an armed group that included former MP Hassan Yaacoub, son of Sheikh Mohammad Yaacoub. Yaacoub was later detained for seven months in connection with the case.
After being freed by his kidnappers and handed over to the Internal Security Forces’ intelligence branch in Hermel, Gaddafi was referred to as a witness to Judge Hamadeh, who later charged him with defamation. Gaddafi was three years old at the time of Sadr’s disappearance in Libya.
During his years of detention — repeatedly condemned by human rights groups — Gaddafi was hospitalized several times.
