Missing Ayat Sadr's passport a Libyan scenario

By: Karim Tellawi

BEIRUT, Lebanon: In the wake of receiving of passport of Lebanese spiritual leader Ayatullah Sayyed Musa As-Sadr, who is missing since 1978 to-date, by Lebanon, Shia sources said this file will never be easy to deal with.

For these sources Libya resorted to this scenario for folding this file which affects Libya relation with all of the Shia world because this case does not links with only Amal Movement but all Shias.

On Monday, the Lebanese judiciary received the passports of the founder of the Amal Movement Ayatullah Musa Sadr, and his companion Sheikh Mohammed Yacoub, who went missing in Libya in 1978, along with Lebanese journalist Abbas Badreddine.

The passports were found by the president of the Rome Tribunal, Luigi Scotti, on September 30, 2004, while prosecuting several suspects on charges of impersonation and forgery.

Lebanese State Prosecutor Adnan Addoum said he received a letter from Foreign Minister Jean Obeid stipulating that the Foreign Ministry received Sadr's passport - which was issued on January 4, 1978 and was valid until January 3, 1979 - from Lebanon's ambassador to Rome in a diplomatic pouch, and Yacoub's passport.

The passports contained visas for Italy and France dated August 31, 1978 - the day Sadr and his companions disappeared. The passports also show that Sadr and Yacoub entered Libya on August 25, 1978, and left Tripoli's airport on August 31, 1978, according to Addoum.

A judicial source said that the passports indicated that the men had left Libya - as Libya has always claimed and Italy denied - and had entered Italy before disappearing.

According to Addoum, who refused to comment further on the issue, the documents have been referred to the judicial investigator in the case, Magistrate Suheil Abdel-Samad, and will be included in the file under examination.

Talking to The Daily Star, Sadreddine Sadr, the missing Ayatullah's son, said that he had heard of Addoum receiving the passports and he couldn't comment on the issue before he had investigated it further.

“We have several pieces of information from different sides,” he added, “But we need to investigate further before we can determine how to proceed.”

Ayatullah Sadr's disappearance has been a sore point in Lebanon-Libya relations.

Sadr's family filed a lawsuit in August against Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi over his alleged role in the cleric's disappearance. Following the complaint, Addoum ordered that Gadhafi be summoned for questioning about the disappearance.

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