“Lebanon Debate”
Forty-eight years after the disappearance of Imam Musa al-Sadr and his two companions, Sheikh Muhammad Yaqoub and journalist Abbas Badr al-Din, without their fate being revealed, the case has returned to the forefront with the emergence of a new document containing data that is believed to have opened a different path in the investigations.
The document indicates, for the first time, the possibility of Imam al-Sadr being detained, during one of the stages of his absence, in a secret political prison that belonged to Abdullah al-Senussi, one of the most prominent pillars of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime and the former head of the Libyan Military Intelligence Service.
Al-Senussi has been serving a prison sentence in Libya since 2012, but the file received by the Lebanese side does not include, according to available data, anything proving that he was subjected to a serious and sufficient Libyan investigation regarding the issue of the disappearance of Imam al-Sadr and his two companions.
In this context, the rapporteur of the official follow-up committee on the case of Imam al-Sadr and his two companions, Judge Hassan al-Shami, confirmed that “the new document has a high degree of realism, and that the committee visited Iraq about two weeks ago in an attempt to obtain it and scrutinize its content more broadly.”
He explained, “The committee has suggested for some time that Imam al-Sadr was transferred between a number of detention centers, including secret prisons belonging to the former Libyan regime,” pointing out that “Gaddafi’s regime, similar to dictatorial regimes, adopted secret political detention centers that do not resemble regular prisons and are not subject to traditional supervision.”
Al-Shami stressed that “Abdullah Al-Senussi remains the most prominent official in this file,” considering him “the first accused in orchestrating the crime of kidnapping Imam Al-Sadr and his two companions,” given his high security position and pivotal role within the former regime’s system.
He pointed out that “the information contained in the document did not appear out of nowhere, but rather intersects with previous data that was in the possession of the committee,” stressing that “the document reinforced the hypothesis that Imam al-Sadr moved between more than one secret detention facility during his years of detention.”
He believed that “the story closest to reality is that Imam al-Sadr remained alive for a period after he was kidnapped and transferred between a number of prisons,” considering that the contrary stories were used, over the years, to mislead the investigation and divert attention from the true path of the case.
These data re-highlight the potential role of the secret political detention centers of the former Libyan regime, and the necessity of subjecting Al-Senussi to an expanded and direct investigation, especially since his security position at the time made him an essential witness and a main accused in one of the most mysterious cases in Lebanon’s modern history.
Between a new document and old unresolved questions, the fate of Imam al-Sadr and his two companions remains pending, awaiting serious Libyan cooperation to reveal secret prison records and determine responsibilities, far from the contradictory narratives that have surrounded the case for 48 years.
