Lebanese Shiite Imam Died In Libya Jail 20 Years After Disappearance
The Shiite spiritual leader Imam Moussa al-Sadr, who went missing in Libya during a 1978 visit , died of natural causes in a Tripoli prison 20 years later, Lebanon’s Al-Liwaa newspaper reported on Tuesday . “Imam Moussa al-Sadr, died in his prison cell where he was being held since his disappearance at the hands of security members of the Gaddafi regime in 1978,” a source from the Libyan National Transitional Council was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
The source told the daily that Sadr died from natural causes in the summer of 1998. He was kept in an underground cell at Tripoli’s central prison.
In response to a question about the whereabouts of Sadr’s body, the source said an initial probe conducted by the Libyan interim authorities indicated that the corpse may have been taken out of the morgue of the jail by Gaddafi’s loyalists to “cover up the crime ” during the first days of the Libyan revolt .
The sources revealed that that the body of al-Sadr might be buried in a mass grave in one of Tripoli’s suburbs.
“The evanished Imam” Sadr who founded the Amal Movement which is now headed by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, went missing during a visit to Libya on Aug. 31, 1978, along with his two companions – Sheikh Mohammad Yacoub and journalist Abbas Badreddine. Gaddafi has denied involvement in his disappearance, claiming Sadr left to Libyan soil to Rome.
