Human Rights Watch known as on Lebanon on Tuesday to launch a son of former Libyan dictator Moamer Gaddafi. He mentioned he was imprisoned for eight years on “false prices.”
Lebanon arrested and charged Hannibal Gaddafi, identified for his good life, in 2015 with withholding details about the 1978 disappearance of Lebanese Shiite cleric Imam Mussa Sadr.
However HRW mentioned he was solely two years outdated on the time of the cleric’s disappearance, and accused Lebanon of subjecting him to “apparently arbitrary detention on false prices.”
“Spending eight years in pre-trial detention makes a mockery of Lebanon’s already tense justice system,” the group’s Hanan Salah mentioned in a press release.
Sadr – the founding father of the Amal motion, now a key ally of the militant group Hezbollah – went lacking throughout an official go to to Libya, together with an aide and a journalist.
Beirut blamed the disappearances on former Libyan strongman Moamer Gaddafi – who was overthrown and killed throughout a 2011 rebellion – and ties between the 2 international locations have been strained since.
“It’s comprehensible that folks need to know what occurred to Imam Sadr,” Salah mentioned. “However it’s illegal to maintain somebody in pre-trial detention for years merely due to their attainable affiliation with the individual liable for the misconduct.”
A Lebanese judicial official labeled the HRW report as “biased and one-sided” and advised AFP it was primarily based solely on “data obtained from Hannibal Gaddafi’s protection workforce.”
Hannibal Gaddafi is being held “in a purely authorized matter,” the supply continued, accusing him of being liable for prisons throughout his father’s rule, “together with the one during which the imam was held.”
In June, a judicial official had advised AFP that the case in opposition to Hannibal Gaddafi had been dropped pending data from Libyan authorities.
In August, Beirut acquired a letter from Libyan authorities demanding Gaddafi’s launch, however a judicial supply advised AFP he wouldn’t be launched till Tripoli revealed details about Sadr’s disappearance.
Later that month, Nabih Berri, head of the Amal motion, accused Libya of “failing to cooperate” with the Lebanese judiciary and “withholding” details about the case.
