Lebanese authorities release son of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, ending 10-year detention

Lebanese authorities released the son of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on Monday after he paid a $900,000 bail, ending his 10-year detention for allegedly withholding information about a missing Lebanese cleric, security officials and a member of his defence team said.

One of Hannibal Gadaafi’s lawyers, Charbel Milad al-Khoury, said his client was released Monday evening after necessary paperwork was finished.

"Hannibal is officially free and has the full right to choose the destination that he wants,” al-Khoury said. He refused to give further details about Gaddafi's future movements out of security concerns.

The release came days after Lebanese authorities lifted Gaddafi's travel ban and reduced his bail,paving the way for his release.

Priori to Thursday’s decision by the country’s judicial authorities, a Libyan delegation visited Lebanon and made progress in talks for the release of Gaddafi.

Detained in Lebanon since 2015, Gaddafi was accused of withholding information about the fate of Lebanese Shiite cleric Moussa al-Sadr who disappeared during a trip to Libya in 1978, although the late Libyan leader’s son was less than 3 years old at the time.

In mid-October, a Lebanese judge ordered Gaddafi’s release on $11 million bail, but banned him from traveling outside Lebanon. His lawyers said at the time that he didn’t have enough to pay that amount, and sought permission for him to leave the country.

His bail was reduced to 80 billion Lebanese pounds (about $900,000) on Thursday and the travel ban was lifted allowing him to leave the country once he pays the bail.

The two judicial and one security official said the bail was paid by the Libyan delegation. The Justice Ministry of the Tripoli-based government also posted on its social media platforms that the Libyan delegation paid the bail.

The judicial officials in Beirut said Gaddafi’s defence team withdrew a case against the Lebanese state that they had filed in Geneva last month over holding him without trial.

Libya formally requested Hannibal Gaddafi’s release in 2023, citing his deteriorating health after he went on a hunger strike to protest his detention without trial.

Gaddafi had been living in exile in Syria with his Lebanese wife, Aline Skaf, and children until he was abducted in 2015 and brought to Lebanon by Lebanese militants who were demanding information about al-Sadr.

Lebanese police later announced they had seized Gaddafi from the northeastern Lebanese city of Baalbek where he was being held, and he had been held ever since in a Beirut jail, where he faced questioning over al-Sadr’s disappearance.

The case has been a long-standing sore point in Lebanon. The cleric’s family believes he may still be alive in a Libyan prison, though most Lebanese presume he is dead. He would be 96 years old.