BEIRUT:
A source familiar with the case of Imam Musa Sadr said Tuesday that a report on
the alleged death of the imam was “not new,” adding that Beirut was awaiting
the results of an investigation being carried out by a committee established by
Libya’s National Transitional Council.The Arabic-language daily Al-Liwaa quoted
an NTC source Tuesday saying that Sadr, who disappeared during a visit to Libya
in 1978, died of natural causes in a prison cell in Tripoli 20 years later.
The
Libyan source said that Sadr had died in the summer of 1998 while he was
detained in an underground cell at Tripoli’s central prison in harsh
conditions. But a source familiar with Sadr’s case told The Daily Star that the
information “is not new” and had been circulating for a long time.
The
same source said that the committee formed by the NTC to investigate the fate
of Sadr and his two companions, Sheikh Mohammad Yaacoub and journalist Abbas
Badreddine, has yet to update Lebanon on any progress in the investigation.
Foreign
Minister Adnan Mansour, the source continued, is to head to Libya soon to
follow up on the matter.
Sadr,
the founder of Amal Movement, now headed by Speaker Nabih Berri, went missing
during an official visit to Libya on Aug. 31, 1978, along with Yaacoub and
Badreddine.
The
Libyan source said that Sadr’s body was kept for unknown reasons at the
prison’s morgue until the early days of the outbreak of the Libyan revolution
under the order of former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi himself or his senior
aides.
The
source told Al-Liwaa that an initial investigation conducted by the NTC showed
that the corpse may have been taken out of the morgue by Gadhafi’s forces to
“cover up the crime” when rebel forces approached Tripoli.
According
to some evidence and a number of eyewitness accounts, the paper said, Sadr’s
body is likely to have been buried in a mass grave that was recently discovered
in a Tripoli suburb. He said that efforts are ongoing to identify the bodies,
including that of Sadr.
The
Libyan source said the NTC had no clue on the whereabouts of Sadr’s two
companions.
“Actually we found no
evidence leading to their fate or place of detention.”
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2011/Dec-28/158123-report-on-sadrs-death-not-new-not-confirmed-source.ashx#axzz1kkzRRrWi
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