(MENAFN- Arab News) BEIRUT: Late Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi's son Hannibal was freed after being briefly kidnapped by an armed group in Lebanon demanding information about the fate of a Shiite cleric who went missing in Libya decades ago a security official and local TV stations said.
Hannibal Qaddafi appeared in a video aired late Friday on local Al-Jadeed TV saying anyone with information about Moussa Al-Sadr should come forward. Qaddafi appeared to have been beaten up and had black eyes but said in the video he is 'in good health happy and relaxed.'
Later Friday a senior security official said police collected Qaddafi from the northeastern city of Baalbek where he was being held by the Shiite militants whose affiliation was not immediately known. The official who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations said Qaddafi was being brought to Beirut.
Al-Sadr's 1978 disappearance has been a long-standing sore point in Lebanon. His family believes he may still be alive in a Libyan prison though most Lebanese presume Al-Sadr is dead. Today he would be 87 years old.
Most of Al-Sadr's followers are convinced Muammar Qaddafi ordered Al-Sadr killed in a dispute over Libyan payments to Lebanese militias.
Hannibal was arrested in 2008 for allegedly beating up two servants in a Geneva luxury hotel sparking a diplomatic spat that dragged on for months. In 2005 a French court convicted him of striking a pregnant companion in a Paris hotel. He was given a four-month suspended prison sentence and a small fine.
He fled to Algeria after Tripoli fell along with his mother and several other relatives.