Gadhafi’s Son Goes on Hunger Strike in Lebanon to Protest Detention without Trial

Hannibal Gadhafi, son of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, watches an elite military unit exercise in Zlitan, Libya, Sept. 25, 2011. (AP)
Hannibal Gadhafi, son of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, watches an elite military unit exercise in Zlitan, Libya, Sept. 25, 2011. (AP)
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Gadhafi’s Son Goes on Hunger Strike in Lebanon to Protest Detention without Trial

Hannibal Gadhafi, son of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, watches an elite military unit exercise in Zlitan, Libya, Sept. 25, 2011. (AP)
Hannibal Gadhafi, son of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, watches an elite military unit exercise in Zlitan, Libya, Sept. 25, 2011. (AP)

A son of Libya’s late leader Moammar Gadhafi, who has been held in Lebanon for more than seven years, began a hunger strike Saturday to protest his detention without trial, his lawyer said.

Hannibal Gadhafi has been held in Lebanon since 2015 after he was kidnapped from neighboring Syria where he had been living as a political refugee. He was abducted by Lebanese militants demanding information about the fate of a Shiite cleric who went missing in Libya 45 years ago.

Gadhafi was later taken by Lebanese authorities and has been held in a Beirut jail without trial.

Attorney Paul Romanos told The Associated Press that his client started the hunger strike Saturday morning and “he is serious and will continue with it until the end.” Romanos did not go into details of the case as he was not authorized to speak about it to the media.

Gadhafi issued a statement describing his conditions.

“How can a political prisoner be held without a fair trial all these years?” Gadhafi, who is married to a Lebanese woman, wrote in his statement.

The Libyan citizen added that now that he is on hunger strike, “those who are treating me unjustly” will be responsible for the results. He added that “the time has come to liberate the law from the hands of politicians.”

Romanos said his client suffers from back pain due to being held in a small cell for years without being able to move or exercise.

The disappearance of prominent Lebanese Shiite cleric Moussa al-Sadr in 1978 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 94 years old.

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

Born in the Iranian city of Qom, al-Sadr came to Lebanon in 1959 to work for the rights of Shiites in the southern port town of Tyre. In 1974, a year before Lebanon’s 15-year civil war broke out, al-Sadr founded the Movement of the Deprived, attracting thousands of followers.

The following year, he established the military wing Amal — Arabic for “hope” and an acronym for the militia’s Arabic name, the Lebanese Resistance Brigades — which later fought in the civil war. The group is headed by powerful parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

Since al-Sadr’s disappearance, Libya has maintained that the cleric and his two traveling companions left Tripoli in 1978 on a flight to Rome and suggested he was a victim of a power struggle among Shiites.

Most of al-Sadr’s followers are convinced that Moammar Gadhafi ordered al-Sadr killed in a dispute over Libyan payments to Lebanese militias.

The Libyan leader was killed by opposition fighters in 2011, ending his four-decade rule of the north African country. Even after his death, al-Sadr’s fate is still unknown.

Hannibal Gadhafi was born two years before al-Sadr disappeared. He fled to Algeria after Tripoli fell, along with his mother and several other relatives. He later ended up in Syria where he was given political asylum before being kidnapped and brought to Lebanon.



Palestinian Teenager Who Died in Israeli Prison Showed Signs of Starvation

Khaled Ahmad holds a poster of his 17-year-old son, Waleed, who died in an Israeli prison, that reads in Arabic, “The hero prisoner Martyr, mercy and eternity for our righteous Martyrs,” in the West Bank town of Silwad, northeast of Ramallah Wednesday, March 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Khaled Ahmad holds a poster of his 17-year-old son, Waleed, who died in an Israeli prison, that reads in Arabic, “The hero prisoner Martyr, mercy and eternity for our righteous Martyrs,” in the West Bank town of Silwad, northeast of Ramallah Wednesday, March 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
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Palestinian Teenager Who Died in Israeli Prison Showed Signs of Starvation

Khaled Ahmad holds a poster of his 17-year-old son, Waleed, who died in an Israeli prison, that reads in Arabic, “The hero prisoner Martyr, mercy and eternity for our righteous Martyrs,” in the West Bank town of Silwad, northeast of Ramallah Wednesday, March 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)
Khaled Ahmad holds a poster of his 17-year-old son, Waleed, who died in an Israeli prison, that reads in Arabic, “The hero prisoner Martyr, mercy and eternity for our righteous Martyrs,” in the West Bank town of Silwad, northeast of Ramallah Wednesday, March 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

Starvation was likely the leading cause of death for a Palestinian teenager who died in an Israeli prison, according to an Israeli doctor who observed the autopsy.
Seventeen-year-old Walid Ahmad, who had been held for six months without being charged, suffered from extreme malnutrition, and also showed signs of inflammation of the colon and scabies, said a report written by Dr. Daniel Solomon, who watched the autopsy, conducted by Israeli experts, at the request of the boy's family.
The Associated Press obtained a copy of Solomon's report from the family. It did not conclude a cause of death, but said Ahmad was in a state of extreme weight loss and muscle wasting. It also noted that Ahmad had complained to the prison of inadequate food since at least December, citing reports from the prison medical clinic.
Ahmad died last month after collapsing in Megiddo Prison and striking his head, Palestinian officials said, citing eyewitness accounts from other prisoners. Israel’s prison service said a team was appointed to investigate Ahmad’s death and its findings would be sent to the authorized authorities.
Ahmad is the youngest Palestinian prisoner to die in an Israeli prison since the start of the Gaza war, according to Physicians for Human Rights Israel, which has documented Palestinian prisoner deaths. He was taken into custody from his home in the occupied West Bank during a pre-dawn raid in September for allegedly throwing stones at soldiers, his family said.
The autopsy was conducted on March 27 at Israel’s Abu Kabir Forensic Institute, which has not released a report of its findings and did not respond to requests for comment. The Ahmad family's lawyer, Nadia Daqqa, confirmed Solomon, a gastrointestinal surgeon, was granted permission to observe the autopsy by an Israeli civil court.
Widespread abuse in Israeli prisons, rights groups say 
Rights groups have documented widespread abuse in Israeli detention facilities holding thousands of Palestinians who were rounded up after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack ignited the war in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian Authority says Israel is holding the bodies of 72 Palestinian prisoners who died in Israeli jails, including 61 who died since the beginning of the war. Israel often holds on to bodies of dead Palestinians, citing security grounds or for political leverage.
Conditions in Israeli prisons have worsened since the start of the war, former detainees have told the AP. They described beatings, severe overcrowding, insufficient medical care, scabies outbreaks and poor sanitary conditions.
Megiddo Prison, a maximum security facility where many Palestinian detainees, including teens, are held without charge, is regarded as one of the harshest, said Naji Abbas, head of the Prisoners and Detainees Department at Physicians for Human Rights Israel.
Israel’s prison service said it operates according to the law and all prisoners are given basic rights.
Ahmad’s lawyer, Firas al-Jabrini, said Israeli authorities denied his requests to visit his client in prison, but three prisoners held there told him Ahmad suffered from severe diarrhea, vomiting, headaches and dizziness before he died. They suspected it was caused by dirty water, as well as cheese and yogurt prison guards brought in the morning and that sat out all day while detainees were fasting for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the lawyer said.
Malnourished and frail 
According to Dr. Solomon's report the autopsy showed that Ahmed likely suffered from inflammation of the large intestine, a condition known as colitis that can cause frequent diarrhea and can in some cases contribute to death.
But medical experts said colitis usually doesn’t cause death in young patients and was likely exacerbated by severe malnutrition.
“He suffered from starvation that led to severe malnutrition and in combination with untreated colitis that caused dehydration and electrolyte levels disturbances in his blood which can cause heart rate abnormalities and death,” said Dr. Lina Qasem Hassan, the head of the board for Physicians for Human Rights Israel who reviewed the report at the request of the AP.
She said the findings indicated medical neglect, exacerbated by Ahmad’s inability to fight disease or infection because of how malnourished and frail he was.
Dr. Arne Stray-Pedersen, a professor of forensic medicine at the University of Oslo in Norway who was not involved in the autopsy, said the report suggests there was a period of prolonged malnutrition and sickness lasting at least a few weeks or months. “Based on the report, I interpret the underlying cause of death to be emaciation-wasting,” he said.
Scabies rashes were also noted on his legs and genital area, the report said. There was also air between his lungs that expanded into his neck and back, it said, which can cause infection. Air can come from small tears in the lungs, which can occur from severe vomiting or coughing, it said.
Ahmad’s family said he was a healthy high schooler who enjoyed playing soccer before he was taken into custody. His father, Khalid Ahmad, said his son sat through four brief court hearings by videoconference, and he noticed at one of them, in February, that his son appeared to be in poor health.
The family hasn’t yet received a death certificate from Israel, the elder Ahmad said Friday, and are hoping Dr. Solomon's report will help bring his son's body home.
“We will demand our son’s body for burial," he said “What is happening in Israeli prisons is a real tragedy, as there is no value for life.”