Son of Libya's Gaddafi in Lebanon hospital after going on hunger strike

Reuters
Updated ·2 min read
2

BEIRUT (Reuters) - A son of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has been treated in hospital in Lebanon after going on hunger strike two weeks ago in protest at his incarceration without trial since 2015, the Lebanese interior minister said on Thursday.

Hannibal Gaddafi has been detained in Lebanon since a prosecutor charged him with concealing information about the fate of Imam Musa al-Sadr, a Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim cleric who disappeared while on a trip to Libya in 1978.

Declaring his decision to go on hunger strike earlier this month, Hannibal Gaddafi - aged two at the time of Sadr's disappearance - said he was a victim of injustice and stood accused of something he did not do.

Lebanese Shi'ites have long held the Gaddafi government, which was toppled in 2011, responsible for Sadr's disappearance, saying Libya kidnapped him during the trip.

Hannibal Gaddafi was taken on Wednesday to hospital from the security forces' building where he is being held, after personnel there felt his condition had deteriorated, Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi told Reuters.

Reem al-Dabri, a Gaddafi representative, said his condition was deteriorating. Noting his very young age at the time of Sadr's disappearance, she said he had nothing to do with the matter and called him "a political hostage for undeclared reasons".

Hannibal Gaddafi fled Libya in 2011 as an uprising raged against his father's rule, eventually making it to Syria, from where Dabri said he was abducted and brought to Lebanon in 2015.

Muammar Gaddafi was captured and killed by rebels in 2011.

Sadr, who Libya said left the country safely, is widely believed to have been killed shortly after he was seized.

Sadr founded the Shi'ite Amal Movement, which alongside Hezbollah dominates Lebanese Shi'ite politics and has been led since 1980 by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.

(This story has been refiled to add the dropped word 'deteriorating' in paragraph 6)

(Reporting by Laila Bassam; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Hugh Lawson)