Libyan Attorney General Siddiq Al-Sour offered legal assistance in the case of the disappearance of the founder of the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council, Imam Musa al-Sadr, in exchange for the release of Hannibal Gaddafi, son of the late Muammar Gaddafi, who is being held in Lebanon since 2015.
Al-Sadr and two of his bodyguards disappeared during their visit to Libya in August 1978.
The Public Prosecutor conveyed a lengthy memorandum to the President of the Judicial Council, the First President of the Court of Cassation, the Public Prosecutor of the Republic of Lebanon, and the judicial investigator, Judge Zaher Hamadeh, to “request international cooperation and mutual legal assistance.”
The leaked letter, which bears the signature of the Libyan prosecutor, detailed the facts of the case since Hannibal’s kidnapping on December 6, 2015 in Syrian territory, his transfer to Lebanon, and his arrest by the Information Division of the Internal Security Forces in the same month.
Al-Sour called on the Lebanese judicial authorities to release Gaddafi, given his “deteriorating health condition, which requires special care; and the implementation of the mechanisms of his extradition to Libya, in accordance with the procedures established in the Lebanese criminal law...”
Hannibal Gaddafi has been on hunger strike since the beginning of June, in protest of his imprisonment without trial since 2015. He was transferred to a hospital in Lebanon after the deterioration of his health condition.
“While we recognize the challenge posed by the investigation into the case of the disappearance of Imam al-Sadr and his two companions, we realize that this challenge can be overcome, through fair and framed judicial cooperation between the two prosecutions in our two countries,” the letter read.
Al-Sour called for “providing the Libyan Public Prosecution with a request for legal assistance, which would include an assessment of the Lebanese judicial authorities of the procedures that would contribute to clarifying the circumstances of the disappearance of Imam al-Sadr and his companions.”
