Lebanon charges Qadhafi son in decades-old kidnap case

BEIRUT — Lebanese authorities on Monday charged Hannibal Qadhafi, the high-living son of the late Libyan dictator, with withholding information about a missing Lebanese Shiite cleric, judicial sources told AFP.

Qadhafi was kidnapped on Friday by an unknown armed group in Lebanon's eastern Bekaa valley, but was freed by police several hours later and taken in for questioning, security sources said.

On Monday he was interrogated for more than three hours by judicial investigators, who charged him with "withholding information on the disappearance of Shiite imam Mussa Sadr".

Sadr went missing in 1978 during an official visit to Libya, along with an aide and a journalist. 

Beirut blamed the disappearances on longtime Libyan strongman Muammar Qadhafi, and the Qadhafi family was branded persona non grata by Lebanon, especially among members of the Shiite Muslim community. 

Qadhafi's lawyer Shadi Hussein, speaking to AFP outside the courtroom, said the Libyan businessman was charged because "the crime is still ongoing, since those kidnapped" remain missing. 

"And because the charged man is one of the sons of the main accused in this case, Moammer Qadhafi," Hussein added. 

According to an AFP journalist at the scene, Qadhafi had two black eyes and was limping. 

His medium-length hair was slicked back, and he was allowed to speak to his Lebanese wife Aline Skaf by phone for a few minutes, although her location was not disclosed. 

Qadhafi's mysterious abduction on Friday evidently occurred in the Bekaa "while he was travelling from Syria", a security source told AFP. 

Bekaa is an eastern stronghold of the Lebanese Shiite movement Hizbollah.