Mansour Follows up on Sadr Case with Libyan Judges

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour held talks on Thursday with Libyan judges Mahmoud al-Yasir and Abdul Latif Qaddour on the ongoing investigation into the disappearance of Imam Moussa al-Sadr and his two colleagues.

Libya is probing the mysterious disappearance Sadr who went missing in Tripoli 33 years ago.

Earlier in January, Mansour visited Libya in order to follow up on the investigation.

He had held talks with the head of the Libyan National Transitional Council Mustapha Abdul Jalil and a number of other officials.

He said: “The investigation is on... there is a commission of inquiry chaired by the Libyan attorney general" which is probing the case.

"We agreed to have follow-ups between Lebanese and Libyans, and there will be a judge representing the Lebanese side, Hassan al-Shami, to follow the issue and arrive at a positive outcome,” he added.

Mansour said that Libyan officials had given assurances about "speeding up the work" in the case, adding that Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Rahim al-Kib “has instructed that the Sadr case be granted maximum attention.”

Sadr, a charismatic and revered Shiite spiritual leader, and two aides, Mohammed Yacoub and Abbas Badreddine, had been officially invited to Libya in 1978 during the rule of Moammar Gadhafi along with an aide and a journalist.

But the three men have not been heard of since and Tripoli had always maintained that the cleric had left Libya for Italy.

Since the mysterious disappearance of Sadr, ties between Libya and Lebanon have been strained.

"The shadow of this case has hung over bilateral relations between Lebanon and Libya for more than 33 years," said Mansour.