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BEIRUT: Hannibal Qaddafi, son of Libya’s deposed ruler Muammar Qaddafi, is expected to be released from a Lebanese prison after his bail was paid on Monday, his lawyer and a judicial official told AFP.
The younger Qaddafi, 49, has been in pre-trial detention for nearly a decade after his arrest in Lebanon on charges of withholding information about the 1978 disappearance of Lebanese Shiite cleric Mussa Sadr in Libya.
He was two years old at the time of Sadr’s disappearance.
“The bail was paid this morning,” Qaddafi’s French lawyer Laurent Bayon told AFP. “Hannibal Qaddafi will finally be free. It’s the end of a nightmare for him that lasted 10 years.”
In October, a judge ordered Qaddafi’s release against bail set at $11 million, which was reduced to $900,000 last week after an appeal by his defense team.
A Lebanese judicial source confirmed the bail was paid and said Qaddafi’s legal team was completing release procedures.
Bayon said his client was set to leave Lebanon for a “confidential” destination, adding that he holds a Libyan passport.
“If Qaddafi was able to be arbitrarily detained in Lebanon for 10 years, it’s because the justice system was not independent,” Bayon said.
He said the move toward his client’s release reflected a restoration of judicial independence under Lebanon’s reformist government that was formed in January.
Mussa Sadr — the founder of the Amal movement, now an ally of militant group Hezbollah — went missing during an official visit to Libya, along with an aide and a journalist.
Beirut blamed the disappearances on then Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi, who was overthrown and killed decades later in a 2011 uprising.
Ties between the two countries have been strained ever since the trio went missing.
Married to Lebanese model Aline Skaf, Hannibal Qaddafi 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.