Lebanese Court to Release Hannibal Gaddafi on $11 Million Bail

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - In a dramatic and unexpected turn in a case that has spanned decades and continents, a Lebanese judge on Friday ordered the release of Hannibal Gaddafi, the flamboyant and controversial son of the late Libyan dictator Moammar Gaddafi, after nearly a decade of pre-trial detention in Lebanon on charges related to the infamous 1978 disappearance of a revered Shiite cleric.

The decision, which sets a prohibitively high bail of $11 million, has been met with a mixture of hope and derision by Gaddafi's legal team, who have decried his long and legally dubious imprisonment as "arbitrary detention" and have immediately questioned how a man under strict international sanctions could possibly pay such an exorbitant sum.

The ruling marks a major new chapter in a saga that has intertwined the fates of powerful political dynasties, international intrigue, and a quest for justice that has haunted Lebanon for nearly half a century.

Justice Council investigative Judge Zaher Hamadeh on Friday ordered the release of Hannibal Gaddafi on the condition that he pay the $11 million bail and be banned from traveling, a judicial official confirmed to Agence France-Presse (AFP), speaking on the condition of anonymity. The decision came after the judge questioned Gaddafi on Friday, the latest step in a case that has seen him imprisoned without trial since his bizarre and dramatic arrival in Lebanon in December 2015.

Gaddafi's legal team, however, has reacted to the bail order with a mixture of relief and outrage. "Release on bail is totally unacceptable in a case of arbitrary detention," lawyer Laurent Bayon told AFP. "We will challenge the bail."

He pointed to the fundamental and seemingly insurmountable obstacle of Gaddafi's financial status. As a member of the former Libyan regime, Hannibal Gaddafi remains under strict international sanctions, a fact that his lawyer said makes it impossible for him to access the funds required to pay the bail. "Where do you want him to find $11 million?" Bayon asked rhetorically.

Another member of Gaddafi's defense team, Ines Harrak, echoed this sentiment in an interview with the Lebanese newspaper L'Orient-Le Jour. "Hasn’t he already paid enough by losing part of his life in prison for 10 years?" she asked, highlighting the immense personal toll of his long detention, during which he has been deprived of his three children, two of whom are still minors.

One of Gaddafi's Lebanese lawyers, speaking to the same newspaper, used a pointed Arabic proverb to describe the court's decision: "He who does not want to marry off his daughter demands a high dowry." The implication was clear: by setting a seemingly impossible sum, the court has created a significant obstacle to his actual release. The defense team has stated that it will file a request to have the bail amount reduced.

The case for which Hannibal Gaddafi has been held for a decade is one of the most enduring and politically charged mysteries in modern Lebanese history: the disappearance of Imam Musa Sadr.

Sadr, a charismatic and highly influential Lebanese Shiite cleric and the founder of the Amal movement, which is now a key ally of Hezbollah, went missing along with his two companions, journalist Abbas Badreddine and Sheikh Mohammad Yaacoub, during an official visit to Libya in August 1978.

Beirut has long blamed Moammar Gaddafi's regime for their disappearance, and the unresolved case has been a source of deep and lasting strain in the relationship between the two countries.

Hannibal Gaddafi was just a toddler, around two years old, at the time of Sadr's disappearance, a fact that his supporters have consistently pointed to as proof of the absurdity of the charges against him.

He is not accused of direct involvement in the disappearance, but of "concealing information" about the case, an allegation that human rights groups have described as "apparently unsubstantiated."

The case took a significant and unexpected turn recently, the first in a decade, when the family of one of the disappeared, journalist Abbas Badreddine, who are a civil party in the case, approved Gaddafi's most recent request for release, which was submitted last June. This move may have been a key factor in Judge Hamadeh's decision to finally grant bail.

Hannibal Gaddafi's journey to a Lebanese prison was as bizarre and dramatic as the case itself. Married to the Lebanese model Aline Skaf, he fled Libya for Syria after the start of the 2011 uprising that ultimately toppled and killed his father.

Then, on December 11, 2015, he was kidnapped in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley by an armed group that reportedly included Hassan Yaacoub, a former member of parliament and the son of the disappeared Sheikh Mohammad Yaacoub.

After being freed by his kidnappers, he was immediately handed over to Lebanon's Internal Security Forces, who then referred him as a witness to Judge Hamadeh, the very judge who would later charge him with a crime.

His nearly ten years of pre-trial detention have been repeatedly condemned by international human rights organizations. In August, Human Rights Watch urged Lebanon to release him immediately, stating that he had been wrongly imprisoned. His health has also been a major source of concern.

As reported by AFP and L'Orient-Le Jour, he has been hospitalized several times during his years of detention, and his lawyer raised the alarm again last week after Gaddafi, who he said suffers from severe depression, was hospitalized for abdominal pain.

The case is not without its own layers of international intrigue. Hannibal Gaddafi's name also came up in the high-profile case of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was sentenced last month to five years in prison over a scheme involving illicit funding from Moammar Gaddafi's regime for his 2007 presidential campaign.

According to AFP, French investigations revealed a possible attempt in early 2021 to corrupt Lebanese judges in the hope of securing Hannibal Gaddafi's release in exchange for information that would clear Sarkozy's name.

The legal limbo of Hannibal Gaddafi is just one chapter in the scattered and often tragic story of the Gaddafi family since the patriarch's fall from power. The 2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed Moammar Gaddafi scattered his family across the globe.

His second son, Seif al-Islam, long seen as his father's successor, was arrested in November 2011 and sentenced to death in a speedy trial before being granted amnesty. He resurfaced in 2021 to announce a presidential bid, but those elections were indefinitely postponed, and his current whereabouts are unknown, as reported by AFP.

The dictator's second wife, Safiya Farkach, his daughter Aisha, and his eldest son Mohammed fled to Algeria in August 2011. Aisha and Mohammed later relocated to Oman, where they were granted political asylum.

According to a source close to the family cited by AFP, Safiya is now based between Egypt and Oman. Another son, Saadi, a former footballer with a playboy reputation, fled to Niger before being extradited back to Libya.

After being released from detention in September 2021, he moved to Turkey, where he currently resides. Two other sons met violent ends during the 2011 uprising. Mutassim, a career soldier and one-time rival to Seif al-Islam for the succession, was captured and killed in Sirte, like his father. Khamis, who commanded a loyalist battalion, was also announced dead in October 2011.

As Hannibal Gaddafi's legal team now works to challenge the steep bail and secure his actual release, his case continues to be a powerful and poignant symbol of the long and often tortured search for justice in a region where the ghosts of the past cast a very long shadow.

The article was updated on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025 at 03:51 PM.