A senior Iranian lawmaker says Iran's envoy to Libya has been tasked with determining the fate that befell Shia Lebanese cleric Imam Moussa Sadr.
Javad Karimi-Qoddousi, who heads a subcommittee set up by the Majlis (parliament) National Security and Foreign Policy Committee to investigate Sadr's fate, said Hossein Akbari, the Iranian ambassador to Libya, will take special measures to determine the fate of Moussa Sadr.
“He is supposed to gather necessary information after meeting with this country's [Libya's] officials and share [that information] with this subcommittee and [with officials of] Lebanon,” IRNA quoted him as saying on Sunday.
The lawmaker stated that based on an agreement between the Majlis subcommittee and Libya's National Transitional Council, the NTC will take necessary steps to shed light on the fate of Sadr in Libya.
Qoddousi expressed hope that the recent arrest of Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, the son of Libya's former dictator Muammar Qaddafi, might be a helpful step in this regard.
Saif al-Islam was captured by NTC forces in south Libya on Saturday, November 19.
Iran's parliamentary subcommittee planned to send a delegation to Libya in August 2011 to probe the fate of Sadr, but the Foreign Ministry advised lawmakers to wait until the situation in Libya came under NTC's control.
Moussa Sadr, the founder of Lebanon's Amal Movement, was a popular and highly revered Lebanese Shia cleric of Iranian descent, who was kidnapped while on an official visit to Libya on August 31, 1978.
Sadr was scheduled to meet with officials from the government of Muammar Gaddafi along with two of his companions, Mohammed Yaqoub and Abbas Badreddin.
It is widely believed in Lebanon that the Shia cleric was kidnapped on the orders of senior Libyan officials.
In 2008, the Beirut government issued an arrest warrant for Gaddafi over Sadr's disappearance.
Iran's Majlis has been stepping up diplomatic efforts to clarify the fate of the kidnapped Shia cleric following the fall of Gaddafi.
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