Lebanese judge orders Qadhafi’s son release on $11m bail

A judge on Friday ordered the release on bail of Hannibal Qadhafi, son of deposed Libyan ruler Moamer Qadhafi, after nearly a decade of pre-trial detention in Lebanon, a judicial official said.

Lebanese authorities arrested Qadhafi in 2015 and accused him of withholding information about the disappearance of Lebanese cleric Mussa Sadr in Libya in 1978.

Qadhafi, now 49 according to his lawyer, was around two years old at the time of Sadr's disappearance.

After questioning Qadhafi on Friday, the judge ordered his release "on $11 million bail and banned him from travel", the judicial official told AFP, requesting anonymity.

Lawyer Laurent Bayon told AFP that "release on bail is totally unacceptable in a case of arbitrary detention. We will challenge the bail."

He noted that his client "is under international sanctions" and could not pay such a sum, adding: "Where do you want him to find $11 million?"

Sadr — the founder of the Amal movement, now an ally of Hizbollah — went missing during an official visit to Libya, along with an aide and a journalist.

Beirut blamed the disappearances on Mummar Qadhafi, who was overthrown and killed decades later in a 2011 uprising, and ties between the two countries have been strained ever since the trio went missing.

Married to Lebanese model Aline Skaf, Hannibal Qadhafi fled to Syria after the start of the Libyan uprising.

He was kidnapped in December 2015 by armed men who took him to Lebanon, where authorities released him from the kidnappers and later detained him.

He has never faced trial.

After the judge's decision, the Sadr family published a statement reiterating their rejection of Qadhafi's release and expressing their "surprise" at Friday's order.

However, they "will not interfere today in (the judge's) decision to release him".

"The arrest or release of Hannibal Qadhafi is not our goal, but rather a mere legal procedure. Our primary issue is the disappearance of the Imam (Musa Sadr)," they added.

In August, Human Rights Watch urged Lebanon to immediately release Qadhafi, saying it had wrongly imprisoned him on "apparently unsubstantiated allegations that he was withholding information" about Sadr.

Last week, lawyer Bayon had raised the alarm about his health and called for his release after Qadhafi, who he said suffers from severe depression, was hospitalised for abdominal pain.

His wife lives in Lebanon with their two younger children who attend school, while the eldest is studying in Europe, a source close to the family said.

The couple had sparked a diplomatic incident with Switzerland in 2008 when they were arrested in a luxury Geneva hotel for assaulting two former domestic employees.

Agence France-Presse