BEIRUT: Lebanon may reduce or cancel the $11 million bail imposed for the release of Hannibal Qaddafi, son of deposed Libyan ruler Muammar Qaddafi, his lawyer and a judicial official said Monday.
Lebanese authorities arrested the younger Qaddafi in 2015 and accused him of withholding information about the 1978 disappearance of Lebanese Shiite cleric Mussa Sadr in Libya.
Qaddafi, who is now 49 according to his lawyer, was around two years old at the time of Sadr’s disappearance.
A judicial official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP a Libyan delegation met Lebanese judicial officials and President Joseph Aoun on Monday.
The delegation, he said, presented the judge investigating Sadr’s disappearance with “a copy of the investigations conducted by the Libyan authorities into the Sadr case, as well as transcripts of the interrogations of a number of political and security officials in the regime of ousted president Muammar Qaddafi.”
The official then noted “significant flexibility” from Lebanon in the Hannibal Qaddafi case, “with the $11 million bail to be reduced to the minimum... so that it no longer hinders Hannibal’s release.”
The judge also seemed open to lifting the travel ban imposed on Qaddafi, the official said.
Lawyer Laurent Bayon told AFP that the bail “should be significantly reduced or even canceled.”
According to Bayon, the bail was divided into two parts: “$10 million for the victims and $1 million as an appearance guarantee.”
The judge may decide to retain only the $1 million appearance guarantee, Bayon said, while noting that he nevertheless still aims to have the “unjustified” bail canceled.
Mussa Sadr — the founder of the Amal movement, now an ally of militant group Hezbollah — went missing during an official visit to Libya, along with an aide and a journalist.
Beirut blamed the disappearances on Muammar Qaddafi, who was overthrown and killed decades later in a 2011 uprising.
The official said that “the Lebanese judiciary will review the Libyan file and assess the information it contains to determine whether it helps uncover the fate of Sadr and his companions.”
Lebanon could reduce $11m bail for Hannibal Qaddafi: judicial official to AFP
https://arab.news/jx9c3
Lebanon could reduce $11m bail for Hannibal Qaddafi: judicial official to AFP
- A judicial official said a Libyan delegation met Lebanese judicial officials and President Joseph Aoun
- The official then noted “significant flexibility” from Lebanon in the Hannibal Qaddafi case, “with the $11 million bail to be reduced to the minimum”
Soleimani warned Al-Assad about ‘spy’ Luna Al-Shibl: Al-Majalla
LONDON: The late Iranian General Qassem Soleimani confronted Syria’s National Security Bureau chief Ali Mamlouk in late 2019 after seeing Luna Al-Shibl leaving his office. Al-Majalla magazine claims its reporters reviewed a document containing the full Arabic transcript of their exchange.
Soleimani reportedly asked, “Who is this?” and Mamlouk replied, “She is Louna Al-Shibl, the president’s adviser.”
The Quds Force commander pressed further: “I know, I know… but who is she really? Where did she work?”
According to Al-Majalla, a sister publication of Arab News, he said her former salary was “ten thousand dollars,” compared with her current salary of “five hundred thousand Syrian pounds,” before asking: “Does it make sense for someone to leave ten thousand dollars for five hundred thousand pounds? She is a spy.”
Both Soleimani and Maher Al-Assad, commander of the Syrian army’s powerful Fourth Division, had warned the ousted president’s inner circle about Al-Shibl, Al-Majalla reported.
‘Suspicious’ car crash
On July 2, 2024, Al-Shibl was involved in what officials described as a traffic accident on the Damascus-Dimas highway. She was hospitalized and died four days later.
But Al-Majalla reported that photos of her armored BMW showed only minor damage, raising immediate questions among those close to the case.
Eyewitnesses told the magazine that the crash was intentional. One said, “a car approached and rammed her vehicle,” and before her bodyguard could exit, “a man attacked her and struck her on the back of the head,” causing paralysis that led to her death.
She was first taken to Al-Saboura clinic, then transferred to Al-Shami Hospital. Several senior regime-linked figures, including businessman Mohammed Hamsho and an aide to Maher Al-Assad, were present when her condition deteriorated. One witness told Al-Majalla that when her bodyguard tried to explain what had happened, “he was arrested immediately in front of the others.”
The presidency later issued a brief statement announcing her death. Her funeral was attended only by a handful of officials. Then president Al-Assad did not attend.
