BEIRUT, Lebanon: A human rights watchdog group said on Friday that Libya should disclose information on the whereabouts of a renowned Lebanese cleric Ayatollah Mussa As-Sadr and other missing individuals.

In a statement released ahead of the two-day Arab Summit, which began this on Saturday March 27 in Tripoli, Human Rights Watch (HRW) also urged the Libyan authorities to make public information about hundreds of missing Libyan prisoners.

“One of the themes of this Arab League summit is reconciliation,” said HRW Middle East and North Africa director Sarah Leah Whitson. “Libya should use this opportunity to inform the families who have been suffering the pain of not knowing where their loved ones are,” she added.

In August 1978, Ayatollah Mussa As-Sadr, together with his two companions Abbas Badreddine and Mohammad Yaqoub, disappeared during an official trip to Libya. The Lebanese widely blame Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi for ordering the men’s disappearance, but Tripoli denies the allegations. Libya has repeatedly claimed Sadr, who was the spiritual and political leader of the Movement of the Deprived in Lebanon (Amal), had already left for Italy before going missing.

Rome has maintained Sadr never arrived there, though in 2004 the Italian authorities returned a passport found in Italy belonging to the cleric.

Sadr’s disappearance prompted Libya to close its embassy in Lebanon, with relations between the countries effectively severed. Gadhafi, who has not visited Beirut since Sadr vanished, was indicted by the Lebanese authorities along with six other Libyans in August 2008 for the imam’s disappearance.

“Disappearances are a continuous crime for which the Libyan government is responsible,” Whitson said.

Heeding demands by Shiite politicians and religious figures, Lebanese President Michel Sleiman boycotted this weekend’s summit in protest to Tripoli’s stalling on the cleric’s disappearance. In his place, Sleiman sent Lebanon’s ambassador to Cairo and the Arab League, Khaled Ziyadeh.

Another leading human rights organization, Amnesty International (AI), also used the summit to pressure Tripoli over Sadr’s whereabouts.

According to a statement by the Supreme Islamic Shiite Council, AI reportedly sent a letter to the Arab summit highlighting Libyan “complicity” in Sadr’s disappearance.