Lebanon issues arrest warrant for Gaddafi
BEIRUT (AFP)
Lebanon has issued an arrest and is seeking the death sentence for Libyan leader Muamar Gaddafi and six other Libyan officials over the disappearance of a top Lebanese Shiite cleric 30 years ago, judicial officials said Wednesday.
Gaddafi was also indicted for allegedly "inciting the abduction" of Imam Mussa Sadr, the spiritual guide of Lebanon's Shiite community, investigating magistrate Samih el-Hajj said in a charge sheet.
An "arrest warrant" was issued for Gaddafi and six other Libyan suspects who were also indicted for taking part in the alleged abduction, according to a copy of the charge sheet obtained by AFP.
Sadr, who founded the opposition Amal movement now led by parliament speaker Nabih Berri, disappeared while in Libya with two companions Mohammed Yacoub and Abbas Badreddin in 1978.
There has been no trace of the three men since.
Libya maintains that the trio left for Italy on August 31, 1978 after their stay in Tripoli and that it has no idea what happened to them afterwards.
Despite a widely held belief in Lebanon that the three Shiites were killed after a dispute with Gaddafi, the al-Sadr family strongly believes the imam is alive and remains in a Libyan jail.
The arrest warrant against Gaddafi was issued in virtue of Lebanese law which allows magistrates to take such measures against suspects who fail to respond to an official summons.
In February, a Lebanese court had given Gaddafi two months to appear for questioning over the disappearance of Sadr, after an official summons sent to Libya through diplomatic channels was not heeded by the Libyan leader.
Lebanon reopened the case in 2004 after relatives of Sadr and his companions lodged several complaints with the authorities demanding action and amid accusations by the influential Shiite Hezbollah movement of Libyan involvement.