Mansour in Libya Soon to Unveil Fate of Moussa al-Sadr

Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour is making arrangements to visit Libya to follow-up the latest efforts made to unveil the fate of revered Lebanese Shiite spiritual leader Moussa al-Sadr, As Safir daily reported on Saturday.

The newspaper said that officials at the foreign ministry are making the necessary contacts with the Libyan authorities to arrange the visit of Mansour at the head of a huge delegation.

The report came a few days after al-Liwaa reported that al-Sadr, who went missing in Libya in 1978, died in the prison that he was detained at.

It said al-Sadr died of natural causes in the summer of 1998, while he was detained at Libya’s capital central prison in an underground cell.

A source in the National Transitional Council in Libya told the newspaper that al-Sadr’s body was preserved in a fridge at the prison based on orders made by slain dictator Moammar Gadhafi or by his assistants.

In 1978, al-Sadr and his companions flew to Tripoli for a week of talks with Libyan officials. They were never seen or heard from again. The day he was last seen, on Aug. 31, 1978, is still marked annually in Lebanon.

At the time, Gadhafi’s regime insisted al-Sadr and his aides left on a flight to Rome at the end of their visit and suggested the imam fell victim to an inter-Shiite power struggle.