Son of late Libyan dictator Gaddafi freed after Lebanon kidnapping

The son of late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi has been freed after he was kidnapped in Lebanon by an unknown armed group.

Businessman Hannibal Gaddafi was freed several hours after he was kidnapped, security sources told AFP.

Lebanese police had reportedly located Mr Gaddafi and were about to question him.

It was not clear where he had been freed, but another security source said he had been kidnapped in the Bekaa region while travelling from Syria.

Local TV stations reported that he had been kidnapped by militants who had demanded information about the fate of Lebanese Shi’ite cleric Mussa Sadr, who disappeared in 1978.

During the kidnapping, a video of Mr Gaddafi calling for anyone with information about Sadr to come forward was broadcast on private Lebanese television channel Al-Jadid.

Lebanon’s National News Agency said that Bekaa was a stronghold of the Lebanese Shi’ite movement Hezbollah.

The Gaddafis had long been unwelcome in Lebanon, with many members of the Lebanese Shi’ite Muslimg community believing that Libya was behind Sadr’s disappearance.

Muammar Gaddafi was killed by opposition fighters in 2011, and was survived by Hannibal, wife Safiya, son Mohammed and daughter Aisha, who escaped to neighbouring Algeria after the fall of Tripoli.

In 2008, Hannibal and his model wife Aline Skaf were arrested in Geneva, Switzerland, for assaulting two former servants, but the case was later dropped.

Gaddafi’s other living sons, Saadi and Seif-al-Islam, are both in detention in Libya. Three others were killed during the revolt.