A Lebanese judge has drastically reduced the $11 million bail imposed for the release of Hannibal Gaddafi, son of deposed Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi, a judicial official said Thursday.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP "the judge had decided to reduce the bail from $11 million to $900,000 and to lift the travel ban".
His lawyer said this would secure his quick release.
Lebanese authorities arrested the younger Gaddafi in 2015 and accused him of withholding information about the 1978 disappearance of Lebanese Shia cleric Musa al-Sadr in Libya.
Gaddafi, who is now 49 according to his lawyer, was around two years old at the time of Sadr's disappearance.
The judge had ordered his release on $11 million bail on 17 October, after nearly a decade of pre-trial detention - a sum then challenged by his lawyers.
Gaddafi's French lawyer Laurent Bayon told AFP "the bail will be paid really quickly and Hannibal will leave Lebanon very soon", without divulging his destination.
He added that Gaddafi was a Libyan passport holder.
Bayon had previously said the original bail had been divided into two parts: $10 million for the victims and $1 million as an appearance guarantee.
"The fact that the judge decided he does not have to pay compensation to the victims implies that he is innocent in the Sadr case," Bayon said on Thursday.
Musa al-Sadr - the founder of the Amal movement, now an ally of militant group Hezbollah - went missing during an official visit to Libya, along with an aide and a journalist.
Beirut blamed the disappearances on then Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi, who was overthrown and killed decades later in a 2011 uprising.
Ties between the two countries have been strained ever since the trio went missing.
Married to Lebanese model Aline Skaf, Hannibal Gaddafi fled to Syria after the start of the Libyan uprising.
He was kidnapped in December 2015 by armed men who took him to Lebanon, where authorities released him from the kidnappers and later detained him.