ISTANBUL

Lebanese judicial authorities on Friday approved the release of Hannibal Gaddafi, the son of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, on a bail of $11 million and a travel ban.

In 2015, Hannibal was kidnapped by unknown assailants in Syria and taken to Lebanon, where the government at the time ordered his arrest.

He has since remained in detention as part of an investigation into the 1978 disappearance of former Amal Movement leader Musa al-Sadr in Libya.

Lebanon’s Shiite community holds the late Gaddafi responsible for the abduction of al-Sadr and two of his aides during an official visit to Libya, though the former Libyan regime repeatedly denied the accusation, claiming the three men had left Tripoli for Italy.

Lebanon’s state news agency NNA said that Judge Zaher Hamadeh, the judicial investigator in the case of al-Sadr’s disappearance, agreed to release Hannibal on an 11-million-dollar bail and imposed a travel ban on him.

Lebanese lawmaker Ashraf Rifi called the decision “an impossible and unlawful ruling that contradicts the spirit of justice and the law.”

“The judiciary must release him immediately, and the Lebanese state should apologize to him, as his detention was arbitrary and unjustified,” said Rifi, who served as Lebanon’s Minister of Justice between 2014 and 2016.