Lebanese judge orders Hannibal Gadhafi's release on $11 million bail

A Lebanese judge on Friday ordered the release of the son of Libya's late leader Moammar Gadhafi on condition that he pay $11 million bail.

Hannibal Gadhafi has 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 without trial.

On Friday, judicial officials said he was taken to the Justice Palace in Beirut, where Judge Zaher Hamadeh questioned him and later ordered his release once the money is paid. Another condition for his release, however, is that he be banned from traveling outside Lebanon for two months.

After the session was over, Gadhafi was taken back to the cell.

Judicial officials in Beirut said Gadhafi's defense team has filed a case against the Lebanese state in Geneva over holding him without trial, adding that the case is expected to be discussed in Switzerland next month.

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. Al-Khoury added that Hannibal Gadhafi's defense team plan to lodge an appeal on Monday over the $11 million bail and ask that it be abolished.

"This decision is almost impossible to be met," al-Khoury said about the bail. "Hannibal has been held for 10 years and it is not logical to release him for $11 million bail."

Gadhafi has been detained in Lebanon since 2015 after he was abducted by Lebanese militants demanding information on the whereabouts of prominent Lebanese Shiite cleric Imam Moussa Sadr. 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 had been living in exile in Syria with his Lebanese wife, Aline Skaf, and children until he was abducted and brought to Lebanon.

He has faced questioning over the past years over the 1978 disappearance of al-Sadr during a visit to Libya.

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

Last week, lawyer Laurent Bayon had raised the alarm about his health and called for his release after Gadhafi, who he said suffers from severe depression, was hospitalized 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.

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

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.

Al-Sadr was the founder of the Amal Movement, a Shiite political and military group that took part in the long Lebanese civil war that began in 1975.

Asked on Friday, about al-Sadr, Gadhafi responded "I don't know" and "I don't remember," according to four judicial officials who attended the session. They spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

Moammar Gadhafi was killed by opposition fighters during Libya's 2011 uprising-turned-civil war, ending his four-decade rule of the North African country.

Hannibal Gadhafi, who was born nearly three years before al-Sadr disappeared, fled to Algeria after his father was toppled and Tripoli fell to opposition fighters, along with his mother and several other relatives. He later moved to Syria where he was given political asylum and stayed there until he was abducted.

Hannibal Gadhafi's name also came up in the case of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who was sentenced last month to five years in prison over a scheme for Moammar Gadhafi to fund his 2007 presidential run.

French investigations revealed a possible attempt to corrupt Lebanese judges in early 2021 in the hope of releasing Hannibal Gadhafi and obtaining information that would clear Sarkozy's name.

Franco-Lebanese businessman Ziad Takieddine, a key accuser in the Sarkozy case, died in Lebanon last month.

Moammar Gadhafi had eight children from two marriages. Most of them had significant roles in his government. His son Muatassim was killed at the same time as Gadhafi Snr was captured and slain. Two other sons, Seif al-Arab and Khamis, were killed in the uprising.

Seif al-Islam, the one-time heir apparent to his father, has been in Libya since his release from detention there in 2017. Gadhafi's son Mohammed and daughter Aisha live in Oman. Al-Saadi, a former soccer player, was released from prison in Libya in 2021 after being jailed following repatriation from Niger in 2014, and is believed to be living in Turkey.