Eurasia Press & News
TEHRAN (FNA)- A Lebanese court has issued an arrest warrant for the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi over the abduction of a senior Shiite leader 30 years ago.
Born in Iran, Imam Musa al-Sadr was one of the most prominent Shiite clerics of his day. The scion of an extensive dynasty of learned theologians, he founded the Amal movement that grew to become one of Lebanon’s biggest political parties.
He went missing at the peak of his fame and influence during a trip to Libya in 1978 along with two companions.
His supporters have long blamed Gaddafi’s regime for his disappearance.
The investigating magistrate Samih al-Hajj has accused Gaddafi of “inciting the abduction” in a charge sheet released to the press.
He has also issued warrants for six other Libyans accused of participating in Sadr’s disappearance.
Gaddafi has already ignored a February summons from a Lebanese court to answer questions about Sadr’s fate.
Born in 1928 in Qom, the great seminary city of central Iran, Sadr studied theology under the most venerable Shiite clerics of the day in both Iran and Najaf, the Iraqi center of Shiite learning.
He moved to Lebanon in 1960 and soon became a political, as well as religious, leader for the country’s Shiite community.
Although the Shiite were Lebanon’s largest community, they held less political clout than the Sunni Muslim or Maronite Christian communities.
When the civil war broke out in 1975, however, the Shiite became more radicalized and through Amal and another party, Hezbollah, started to fight for a greater share of political power.
The speaker of Lebanon’s parliament, Nabih Berri, is the head of the Amal party today.
