Khaled Al-Zaidi, lawyer for Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, the son of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, denied the existence of secret negotiations for the release of his brother Hannibal, who has been detained in Lebanon for years.
French magazine, John Afrique recently quoted an Iraqi woman, Suha Al-Badri, who described her as an advisor to Saif Al-Islam as saying that the “release of Hannibal will be soon, after paying a bail of $150,000 to the Lebanese authorities, provided that he remains there until his trial.”
Al-Zaydi said in statements to Russia’s Sputnik news agency, “What was reported by the French newspaper, ‘John Afrique’, is false, as Al-Badri is not part of Saif Al-Islam’s work team. There is no understanding or deal for the release of the kidnapped Libyan citizen, Hannibal Gaddafi. Hannibal remains in arbitrary detention, and there are no indications of his release or presentation to the judiciary.”
Hannibal sought refuge in Algeria, after the 2011 uprising, before trying to sneak into Lebanon in 2015, to join his wife, Lebanese model Aline Skaf. Lebanese authorities arrested and charged him with withholding information about prominent Muslim Shiite cleric, Mussa Sadr who went missing in 1978 during a visit to Libya.
In September, Ahmed Gaddaf Al-Dam called for the release of Hannibal. He said that “his kidnapping is an affront to Lebanon and the Lebanese judiciary. It bears nothing but a historical shame for its perpetrator, who alone bears the brunt of this behaviour.”
“Securing his release would open a new and bright page for Libyan-Lebanese relations,” Gaddaf Al-Dam told Sputnik. “We will not stop demanding Hannibal’s release.”