Libya Asks Lebanon to Release Gaddafi’s Detained Son Due to Deteriorating Health, Officials Say

Hannibal Gaddafi, son of ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, watches an elite military unit exercise in Zlitan, Libya, Sept. 25, 2011. (AP)
Hannibal Gaddafi, son of ousted Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, watches an elite military unit exercise in Zlitan, Libya, Sept. 25, 2011. (AP)
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Libya Asks Lebanon to Release Gaddafi’s Detained Son Due to Deteriorating Health, Officials Say

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

Libya’s judicial authorities have formally asked Lebanon to release one of the late ruler Moammar Gaddafi’s sons, held without charges in Lebanon since 2015 because of his deteriorating health, officials said Monday.

The health of Hannibal Gaddafi has been deteriorating since he went on hunger strike on June 3, to protest his detention without trial. He was taken to hospital at least twice since then and has been only drinking small amounts of water.

According to two Lebanese judicial officials, Libya’s prosecutor general Al-Sediq al-Sour, sent a request earlier this month to his Lebanese counterpart, Ghassan Oueidat, regarding Hannibal Gaddafi. The officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

The note stated that Lebanon’s cooperation in this matter could help reveal the truth regarding the fate of a prominent Lebanese Shiite cleric, Moussa al-Sadr, who went missing in Libya in 1978.

It questioned why Gaddafi was being held and asked that he be either handed over to Libya or be allowed to return to Syria, where he had been living in exile with his Lebanese wife, Aline Skaf, and children until he was abducted and brought to Lebanon eight years ago.

The Lebanese prosecutor then referred the case to Zaher Hamadeh, the investigative judge in the missing cleric's case, who is studying the Libyan request and would respond in time.

Hannibal Gaddafi has been detained in Lebanon since 2015 after he was abducted by Lebanese militants demanding information on the whereabouts of the cleric. Lebanese police later announced it had picked up Gaddafi from the city of Baalbek in northeastern Lebanon, where he was being held. He has since been held in a Beirut jail.

The disappearance of 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.

He was the founder of the Amal movement, Arabic for “hope,” and an acronym for the militia’s Arabic name, the Lebanese Resistance Brigades. The group later fought in Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war. Lebanon’s powerful Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri heads the group.

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

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.

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

Hannibal Gaddafi, who was born two 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 made it to Syria where he was given political asylum and stayed there until he was abducted.

Syrian authorities at the time blasted Hannibal Gaddafi’s seizure “by an armed gang” and have been demanding he be returned to Syria.



Anxiety Clouds Easter for West Bank Christians

Residents of the West Bank town of Zababdeh say its church bells are often drowned out by the roar of Israeli air force jets headed for action nearby. - AFP
Residents of the West Bank town of Zababdeh say its church bells are often drowned out by the roar of Israeli air force jets headed for action nearby. - AFP
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Anxiety Clouds Easter for West Bank Christians

Residents of the West Bank town of Zababdeh say its church bells are often drowned out by the roar of Israeli air force jets headed for action nearby. - AFP
Residents of the West Bank town of Zababdeh say its church bells are often drowned out by the roar of Israeli air force jets headed for action nearby. - AFP

In the mainly Christian Palestinian town of Zababdeh, the runup to Easter has been overshadowed by nearby Israeli military operations, which have proliferated in the occupied West Bank alongside the Gaza war.

This year unusually Easter falls on the same weekend for all of the town's main Christian communities -- Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican --- and residents have attempted to busy themselves with holiday traditions like making date cakes or getting ready for the scout parade.

But their minds have been elsewhere.

Dozens of families from nearby Jenin have found refuge in Zababdeh from the continual Israeli military operations that have devastated the city and its adjacent refugee camp this year.

"The other day, the (Israeli) army entered Jenin, people were panicking, families were running to pick up their children," said Zababdeh resident Janet Ghanam.

"There is a constant fear, you go to bed with it, you wake up with it," the 57-year-old Anglican added, before rushing off to one of the last Lenten prayers before Easter.

Ghanam said her son had told her he would not be able to visit her for Easter this year, for fear of being stuck at the Israeli military roadblocks that have mushroomed across the territory.

Zabadeh's Anglican church was busy in the runup to Easter but across the West Bank Christian communities have been in sharp decline as people emigrate in search of a better life abroad.

Zabadeh looks idyllic, nestled in the hills of the northern West Bank, but the roar of Israeli air force jets sometimes drowns out the sound of its church bells.

"It led to a lot of people to think: 'Okay, am I going to stay in my home for the next five years?'" said Saleem Kasabreh, an Anglican deacon in the town.

"Would my home be taken away? Would they bomb my home?"

- 'Existential threat' -

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and in recent months far-right ministers in its coalition government have called for the annexation of swathes of the territory.

Kasabreh said this "existential threat" was compounded by constant "depression" at the news from Gaza, where the death toll from the Israel's response to Hamas's October 2023 attack now tops 51,000, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry.

Work has been hard to find for Zababdeh's mainly Christian residents since Israel rescinded Palestinian work permits following the October 2023 attack by Hamas that sparked the Gaza war.

Zababdeh has been spared the devastation wreaked on Gaza, but the mayor's office says nearly 450 townspeople lost their jobs in Israel when Palestinian work permits were rescinded after the Hamas attack.

"Israel had never completely closed us in the West Bank before this war," said 73-year-old farmer Ibrahim Daoud. "Nobody knows what will happen".

Many say they are stalked by the spectre of exile, with departures abroad fuelling fears that Christians may disappear from the Holy Land.

"People can't stay without work and life isn't easy," said 60-year-old maths teacher Tareq Ibrahim.

Mayor Ghassan Daibes echoed his point.

"For a Christian community to survive, there must be stability, security and decent living conditions. It's a reality, not a call for emigration," he said.

"But I´m speaking from lived experience: Christians used to make up 30 percent of the population in Palestine; today, they are less than one percent.

"And this number keeps decreasing. In my own family, I have three brothers abroad -- one in Germany, the other two in the United States."

Catholic priest Father Elias Tabban insists the hard times his congregation has been going though have deepened their faith.

Catholic priest Elias Tabban adopted a more stoical attitude, insisting his congregation's spirituality had never been so vibrant.

"Whenever the Church is in hard times... (that's when) you see the faith is growing," Tabban said.