Son of late Libyan dictator Kadhafi ‘kidnapped in Lebanon’

Beirut: Hannibal Kadhafi, the high-living businessman son of the late Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi, was kidnapped in Lebanon on Friday, a security source said.

Kadhafi, "who was in Lebanon, was kidnapped Friday by an armed group", the source said without providing details.

The lavish lifestyles of Kadhafi's family and entourage helped fuel the anger in Libya that sparked the protests that led eventually to the strongman's ouster.

Hannibal, born in 1975, was among a group of family members -- including Kadhafi's wife Safiya, son Mohammed and daughter Aisha -- who escaped to neighbouring Algeria after the fall of Tripoli in 2011.

In 2008, he and his Lebanese wife, Aline Skaf, sparked a diplomatic incident with Switzerland when they were arrested in a luxury Geneva hotel for assaulting two former servants.

The Libyan regime demanded that no charges be brought and an apology be made over the allegations that he had assaulted the pair, a Tunisian and a Moroccan. The case was dropped.

The Kadhafi family was long persona non grata in Lebanon, especially among members of the Shiite Muslim community, who believe Libya was behind the 1978 disappearance of a Lebanese Shiite leader, Mussa Sadr.

A former Libyan envoy to the Arab League, Abdel Moneim al-Honi, told the pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat in 2011 that Sadr had been ordered killed during a visit to Libya and was buried in the southern region of Sabha.

That same year, as the elder Kadhafi was battling an uprising against him, a private jet carrying Skaf was refused permission to land at Beirut's airport.

An official said at the time that acting transport minister Ghazi Aridi had asked for a detailed passenger manifest and that his request was rejected by the Libyans.