By Van Meguerditchian and Youssef Diab
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BEIRUT: Caretaker Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar has asked the Foreign Ministry to look into recent reports indicating that Imam Musa Sadr was assassinated by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s agents.
Najjar also tasked the Prosecutor General’s office with informing Lebanon’s Judicial Council and Interpol to follow up on the status of Sadr, who disappeared in Libya in 1978.
In 2008, Gadhafi and several aides were indicted by the Judicial Council and the body was set to convene to try the indicted in absentia on Mar. 4, 2011.
However, the council is unlikely to convene for next month’s trial, after its head Ghaleb Ghanem retired late last year. The appointment of a successor to Ghanem requires a functioning cabinet, which has not been formed yet by Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati.
“I personally worked on sending all the judicial requests through the Foreign Ministry so the trial moves forward, since the head of the Judicial Council has not been appointed,” said Najjar, who made the announcement during the opening of an Information Office at the Justice Palace. (SEE BOX)
Sadr’s case is important to all Lebanese from all sects, since it is an issue of human rights, Najjar said.
“Lebanon will follow up on the case [Sadr’s disappearance] in careful fashion, because it is in the interest of Lebanon and the Lebanese to learn the truth of Sadr’s fate,” Najjar added.
As Libya entered its ninth day of unrest and confrontations between Gadhafi’s regime and demonstrators, Gadhafi’s associate Abdel-Monem Houni told the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat Wednesday that Sadr was assassinated and buried in the southern Libyan city of Sabha.
Houni also said that his brother-in-law, Colonel Najemeddine Yazeji, was also killed after he transferred Sadr’s body to the burial site in Sabha on board Gadhafi’s private jet.
The cleric was accompanied on the 1978 trip by Sheikh Mohammad Yaacoub, and Abbas Badreddine, a journalist, who are also missing.
Najjar noted that it was not possible to confirm Sadr’s death due to conflicting reports on the precise fate of the Shiite cleric.
“While his [Sadr’s] family members say Imam Sadr is still in a Libyan prison, other recent reports stated the opposite, which is what made me contact the Foreign Ministry,” Najjar said in reference to Houni’s account.
The Libyan regime has denied the allegations about its involvement in the disappearance of Sadr and claims that he left Libya for Italy.
An Amal Movement official, Ali Hamdan, told The Daily Star in a phone call that the saga of Sadr’s fate was approaching a definitive stage.
“It is completely natural for the justice minister to follow up on the case of the disappearance of Sadr because this is the 33rd year of his disappearance and we need to know the truth about it,” he added. According to Hamdan, the latest unrest and upheaval in Libya would result in the ousting of Gadhafi’s regime. “It’s over,” Hamdan said, “Gadhafi’s regime is ultimately moving toward collapse.”
Amid the new claims, the son of one of the missing men played down the revelations. “The stories being told by Gadhafi’s associate Abdel-Monem al-Houni are an attempt to declare his innocence in Sadr’s case,” said former Zahle MP Hassan Yaacoub, the son of Sheikh Hassan Yaacoub.
Meanwhile, Speaker Nabih Berri condemned the Libyan regime’s use of force and “massacres” against peaceful protesters. “The kidnapping of Sadr and the killing of people and all that is happening today in Libya proves that Gadhafi’s regime is a criminal one that oppresses its people,” Berri said after his Wednesday meeting with MPs.
Berri also criticized the role of the West in covering the crimes committed by Gadhafi against Libyans and its other human rights violations. “Reactions by Western governments have been timid, and have gone so far as to support Gadhafi’s regime,” he added.
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