Overview
- Investigating Judge Zaher Hamadeh questioned Qaddafi for the first time since 2017 and set release terms that include a two-month travel ban.
- Qaddafi remains in custody until the bail is paid, as his lawyers say he cannot afford the sum and will move to cancel or reduce it and contest the travel restriction.
- He has been held since 2015 after an alleged abduction in or near Syria and transfer to Lebanese authorities, and in 2017 he was charged with concealing information about al-Sadr’s 1978 disappearance.
- Human Rights Watch and Libya’s attorney general have pressed for his release, citing prolonged detention and ill health, including hunger strikes and a recent hospital visit.
- The al-Sadr family criticized the decision to grant bail but said their priority remains establishing the imam’s fate in the politically sensitive case.