BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese authorities on Friday ordered the release of the son of Libya’s late leader Moammar Gadhafi on condition that he pay $11 million bail. Another condition for his release, however, is that he be banned from traveling outside Lebanon for two months.
Hannibal Gadhafi has been been imprisoned in Lebanon for a decade without being charged.
The expected release comes after his lawyers have said that he had been ill in his cell at police headquarters in Beirut. Libya in 2023 formally requested his release, citing his deteriorating health after he went on hunger strike to protest his detention.
On Friday, judicial officials said he was taken to the Justice Palace in Beirut, where Judge Zaher Hamadeh ordered his release once the money is paid.
One of Gadhafi’s lawyers, Charbel Milad al-Khoury, told The Associated Press that Gadhafi does not have the money and does not have access to accounts in order to pay the bail.
Hannibal Gadhafi has been detained in Lebanon since 2015 after he was abducted by Lebanese militants demanding information on the whereabouts of a prominent Lebanese Shiite cleric. Lebanese police later announced it had picked up Gadhafi from the city of Baalbek in northeastern Lebanon, where he was being held. He has since been held in a Beirut jail.
Gadhafi has faced questioning over the past years over the 1978 disappearance of a Shiite cleric, Moussa al-Sadr, during a visit to Libya.
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 al-Sadr is dead. He would be 96 years old.
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