Hannibal Gaddafi free after almost 10 years in prison

After nearly 10 years of detention, Hannibal Gaddafi, the son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, is now a free man.

“We paid the bail at the registry of the investigating judge at the Court of Justice, Zaher Hamadeh, to whom we presented the payment receipt,” his French lawyer, Laurent Bayon — one of the defendant’s three attorneys — told L’Orient-Le Jour.

Initially set at 11 million dollars, the bail was eventually reduced to 900,000 dollars (around 80 billion Lebanese lira) by Judge Hamadeh that paid the amount on Monday morning.

During the day, Bayon completed the formalities for the release of his client with the Public Prosecutor at the Court of Cassation, Jamal Hajjar, before awaiting authorization for his client to leave the building of the Directorate General of the Internal Security Forces in Achrafieh, where he had been detained.

Gaddafi had been imprisoned in Lebanon since 2015 for “concealment of information” concerning the disappearance of the Lebanese Shiite cleric and founder of the Amal Movement, Moussa Sadr, and his two companions, in 1978, in Libya. He was barely three years old at the time.

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Courts reduce Gaddafi's bail, lift travel ban

Married to a Lebanese woman and father of three children, he is expected to remain temporarily in Lebanon, according to Bayon, although his travel ban was lifted by Judge Hamadeh at the same time as the decision to release him on bail. In possession of a Libyan passport, he will later leave for a destination that remains “confidential.”

Considering that his presence in Lebanon poses a serious threat to their client’s safety, the lawyers are awaiting a decision from the U.N. Security Council regarding the lifting of the international travel ban imposed in 2011 on the Gaddafi family following the fall of the regime.

They submitted a request to that effect to the Council on Friday through the Lebanese Foreign Affairs Minister , Joe Rajji. According to diplomatic procedure, the latter is expected to transmit the request to the U.N. through Lebanon’s ambassador to the United Nations, Ahmad Arafa.

Throughout his fight to free Gaddafi, Bayon had not hesitated to criticize the Lebanese judiciary, accusing it of a “lack of independence” and of the “arbitrary detention” of his client.

On Monday, however, he issued a statement praising “the actions of the current government, and particularly of the Justice Minister (Adel Nassar), who has restored respect for fundamental principles and rights to the heart of the judicial institution’s functioning.”