Hannibal Gadhafi Reveals Info on Sadr to Judge as Arrest Warrant Issued

The Lebanese judiciary issued Monday an arrest warrant for Hannibal Moammar Gadhafi, who was handed over Friday to Lebanese authorities after a brief abduction in Lebanon at the hands of an armed group.

“Examining Magistrate Zaher Hamadeh has issued an arrest warrant for Hannibal Gadhafi on charges of withholding information linked to the case of Imam Moussa al-Sadr,” state-run National News Agency reported.

Hamadeh issued the warrant after interrogating Hannibal throughout the day at the Justice Palace.

A lawsuit was also filed against Gadhafi on Monday by the lawyer of Imam al-Sadr's family.

According to LBCI television, Hannibal "confessed that the Libyan regime was involved in the abduction of Imam al-Sadr, naming the person who impersonated the imam and traveled to Rome" in 1978.

He noted that "the sources of his information were his brother Seif al-Islam and intelligence official Al-Mutassem Billah," LBCI added.

Al-Jadeed TV meanwhile quoted Hannibal as telling Judge Hamadeh that al-Sadr "was detained in a house in (Libya's) Tripoli" and that "he had never left for Rome."

"My father blamed (former Libyan premier) Abdul Salam Jalloud in the case of al-Sadr's disappearance," he told the judge, according to al-Jadeed.

The TV network said Hannibal told Hamadeh that his brother Mutassem, who was killed during Libya's uprising, "had information about Imam al-Sadr."

"The man who impersonated the imam and wore his clothes to travel to Rome is a well-known figure who currently lives in an Arab country," Hannibal added, according to al-Jadeed.

Gadhafi's lawyer Shadi Hussein, speaking to AFP outside the courtroom, said the Libyan businessman was charged because "the crime is still ongoing, since those kidnapped" remain missing.

"And because the charged man is one of the sons of the main accused in this case, Moammar Gadhafi," Hussein added.

According to an AFP journalist at the scene, Gadhafi had two black eyes and was limping.

His medium-length hair was slicked back, and he was allowed to speak to his Lebanese wife Aline Skaff by phone for a few minutes, although her location was not disclosed.

The 40-year-old son of slain Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi appeared in a video on Friday in which he announced that he had been kidnapped in Lebanon.

In the video, Hannibal described his captors as "loyal to the cause of Imam Moussa al-Sadr," the founder of Lebanon's AMAL Movement who disappeared while on a trip to Libya in 1978.

He said anyone who has information about al-Sadr should come forward.

State-run National News Agency said Gadhafi was abducted Thursday “after being lured from Syria into a town near Baalbek” and that his captors had demanded "information about Imam Moussa al-Sadr and his two companions."

Later on Friday, the agency said Hannibal was “handed over to the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Branch after his captors left him on the Baalbek-Homs international highway near the northern Bekaa town of al-Jamaliyeh.”

Hannibal is married to Lebanese lingerie model Aline Skaff.

Photographs obtained by Agence France-Presse in Libya had revealed how Hannibal and his wife were living a high-flying party lifestyle during his father's iron-fisted rule.

The lavish lifestyles of Gadhafi's family and entourage helped fuel the anger in Libya that sparked the protests that led eventually to the former strongman's ouster.

Hannibal was among a group of family members -- including Gadhafi's wife Safiya, son Mohammed and daughter Aisha -- who escaped to neighboring Algeria after the fall of the Libyan capital Tripoli.

On August 25, 1978, al-Sadr and two companions -- Sheikh Mohammed Yaaqoub and journalist Abbas Badreddine -- departed for Libya to meet with government officials.

The visit was paid upon the invitation of then Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi – Hannibal's father. The three were seen lastly on August 31. They were never heard from again.

The Lebanese judiciary indicted Moammar Gadhafi in 2008 over al-Sadr's disappearance, although Libya had consistently denied responsibility, claiming that the imam and his companions had left Libya for Italy.

Y.R.