Lebanese authorities reduce bail and lift travel restrictions for Hannibal Gadhafi, detained since 2015, clearing the way for his long-awaited release.
Lebanese judicial authorities have lifted a travel ban and sharply reduced the bail amount for Hannibal Gadhafi, son of the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, paving the way for his release after a decade in detention without trial.
The decision, announced Thursday November 6, 2025, by judicial officials and confirmed by one of Gadhafi’s lawyers, came just days after a Libyan delegation visited Beirut to negotiate his freedom. Officials said Gadhafi’s bail was reduced from the earlier sum of $11 million to roughly $900,000, equivalent to 80 billion Lebanese pounds. Once the payment is made, he will be allowed to leave the country.
“We have just been informed and will discuss the matter,” Gadhafi’s lawyer, Charbel Milad al-Khoury, told reporters following the ruling.
Lebanese authorities detained Hannibal Gadhafi in 2015, accusing him of withholding information about the disappearance of Lebanese Shiite cleric Moussa al-Sadr, who vanished during a 1978 visit to Libya. Gadhafi was less than three years old at the time of the cleric’s disappearance.
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Gadhafi’s detention has long strained relations between Lebanon and Libya. His case gained renewed international attention in 2023 when Libya formally requested his release, citing his deteriorating health after a hunger strike to protest being held without trial.
Before his abduction in 2015, Gadhafi had been living in exile in Syria with his Lebanese wife, Aline Skaf, and their children. He was reportedly seized in Baalbek, eastern Lebanon, by militants demanding information about al-Sadr, and later handed over to Lebanese security forces.
The disappearance of al-Sadr, a prominent cleric and founder of the Amal Movement — a Shiite political and military faction active during Lebanon’s 15-year civil war — remains one of the country’s most enduring mysteries. His family maintains hope he is alive, though most Lebanese believe he was killed in Libya. He would now be 96 years old.
Moammar Gadhafi, Hannibal’s father, ruled Libya for more than four decades before being overthrown and killed by opposition forces during the 2011 uprising that plunged the nation into years of instability.
Judicial sources told local media that once freed, Hannibal Gadhafi intends to leave Lebanon immediately, with his family expected to join him later.
Africa Daily News, New York
