Detained Gaddafi Health Deteriorates During Hunger Strike

Facts

• After Hannibal Gaddafi, a son of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, went on hunger strike Saturday to protest his years-long imprisonment without trial in Lebanon, his lawyer reported Thursday that his health has deteriorated.¹
• Gaddafi's lawyer told Al Jazeera that the 47-year-old reported “spasms in his muscles, hands and legs, dizziness and headaches, and prior medical problems in his spine and hips deteriorated because of the strike.”¹
• Gaddafi called for his immediate release after being detained for years regarding the disappearance of Lebanese Shiite cleric and founder of the Amal Movement Musa al-Sadr in 1978 while he was in Libya, which at the time was under the rule of Gaddafi's father.²
• Gaddafi was first detained in Lebanon in 2015 after he was captured in neighboring Syria, where he had been living as a political refugee. His captors were reportedly Lebanese militants who wanted information on Sadr's disappearance.³
• He was eventually handed over to Lebanese authorities, who imprisoned him in the nation's capital of Beirut. Gaddafi left Libya after his father's overthrow in 2011.⁴
• Though it's still unknown what exactly happened to Sadr, most of his supporters within the Amal Movement believe that Muammar Gaddafi had him executed during an internal power struggle among Shiites. Meanwhile, Libya claims he left the country for Rome in 1978.⁵

Sources: ¹Al Jazeera, ²AL, ³The Times of Israel, ⁴WION and ⁵Libya Update News.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Tehran Times. Sadr was one of the greatest figures in modern Lebanese history, known for his strong desire to lift Lebanon's deprived Shiite community out of poverty and find a solution to the country's devastating civil war. Even those outside of the Shiite sect in Lebanon have a deep respect for Sadr, making his kidnapping at the hands of the Gaddafi family even more heinous. They must be held to account.
• Narrative B, as provided by The New Arab. Regardless of Hannibal Gaddafi or his father's potential involvement in Sadr's disappearance, Hannibal Gaddafi, at the very least, deserves a fair trial. Holding him in squalid conditions in a Lebanese prison indefinitely violates his human rights, and it's imperative that the Lebanese state takes action.
• Narrative C, as provided by Al Arabiya English. Though the Iranian regime loves to pontificate about Musa al-Sadr's disappearance, the reality is that evidence suggests Iran may have been behind his execution. Muammar Gaddafi had a strong relationship with Ayatollah Khomeini, who, only a year after Sadr's disappearance, returned to Iran during the revolution, so it's likely that the Islamic Republic had him disappear to pursue its goals in Lebanon.