BEIRUT (AP) – A son of Libya’s late leader Moammar Gadhafi, who has been held in Lebanon for more than seven years, began a hunger strike on Saturday to protest his detention without trial, his lawyer said.
Hannibal Gadhafi has been held in Lebanon since 2015 after he was kidnapped from neighbouring Syria where he had been living as a political refugee. He was abducted by Lebanese militants demanding information about the fate of a cleric who went missing in Libya 45 years ago.
Gadhafi was later taken by Lebanese authorities and has been held in a Beirut jail without trial.
Attorney Paul Romanos told The Associated Press that his client started the hunger strike on Saturday and “he is serious and will continue with it until the end”. Romanos did not go into details of the case as he was not authorised to speak about it to the media.
Gadhafi issued a statement describing his conditions.
“How can a political prisoner be held without a fair trial all these years?” Gadhafi, who is married to a Lebanese woman, wrote in his statement.
The Libyan citizen added that now that he is on hunger strike, “those who are treating me unjustly” will be responsible for the results. He added that “the time has come to liberate the law from the hands of politicians”.
Romanos said his client suffers from back pain due to being held in a small cell for years without being able to move or exercise.
The disappearance of prominent Lebanese cleric Moussa al-Sadr in 1978 has been a long-standing sore point in Lebanon. The cleric’s family believes he may still be alive in a Libyan prison, though most Lebanese presume al-Sadr is dead. He would be 94 years old.
Hannibal Gadhafi was born two years before al-Sadr disappeared. He fled to Algeria after Tripoli fell, along with his mother and several other relatives. He later ended up in Syria where he was given political asylum before being kidnapped and brought to Lebanon.
