Riyadh: The son of Libya’s late leader Muammar Gaddafi, who has been imprisoned in Lebanon since 2015, has started a hunger strike in protest of his detention without charge, local media reported.
Hannibal Gaddafi was detained in Lebanon in 2015 after being kidnapped from Syria where he was living as a political refugee.
The kidnapping was said to have been orchestrated by Lebanese militants who demanded information about the whereabouts of Lebanese cleric Musa al-Sadr who disappeared from Libya 45 years ago.
Gaddafi’s son was later arrested by the Lebanese authorities and held in Beirut prison without trial so far.
Attorney Paul Romanos told The Associated Press that his client began the strike on Saturday morning. He was “serious and will continue it until the end.”
Romanos said Gaddafi suffers from back pain from years of being confined to a small room without being able to move or exercise.
In a statement released by his lawyer Paul Romanos, Hannibal stated, “In the face of persistent injustice and abuse against me, it is time for me to be released after more than a decade in prison for an arrest and allegations of a crime I did not commit.”
“How can a political prisoner be held without a fair trial for all these years?”
He further stated that he is now on hunger strike, and “those who treat me unfairly” would be responsible for the results. “The time has come to liberate the law from the hands of politicians,” he added.
