A Lebanese judge has ordered the release of Hannibal Gaddafi, son of Libya's late dictator Muammar Gaddafi, after a decade of detention without trial, but only if he posts an $11 million bail—a sum his attorneys deem unattainable and plan to challenge.

Hannibal, 47, has languished in a Beirut jail since his 2015 abduction by militants demanding details on the 1978 disappearance of prominent Shiite cleric Moussa al-Sadr. Friday's ruling by Judge Zaher Hamadeh, following a Justice Palace hearing, sets conditions including a two-month ban from leaving Lebanon.

Gaddafi was returned to custody after the session, pending payment.

Speaking to reporters, lawyer Charbel Milad al-Khoury decried the bail as "almost impossible to meet," noting Hannibal's lack of access to funds. "He's been held for 10 years; it's not logical to release him for $11 million," al-Khoury said, announcing an appeal for Monday.

Libya formally requested his freedom in 2023, citing health decline from a hunger strike, but the case has languished amid diplomatic tangles.

Gaddafi, questioned about al-Sadr's fate—widely presumed dead at 96—replied, "I don't know" and "I don't remember," per judicial sources. The cleric's vanishing during a Libya trip has strained Lebanon-Libya ties for decades, with al-Sadr's followers blaming Gaddafi's regime.

Hannibal, who fled to Syria post-2011 uprising that felled his father, was seized in Baalbek, a Hezbollah bastion.

Muammar Gaddafi's 2011 death in a NATO-backed revolt scattered his family: Son Seif al-Islam lives in Libya after detention; Mohammed and Aisha in Oman; al-Saadi in Turkey post-prison.

Rights groups like Amnesty International decry his prolonged hold as arbitrary, urging swift resolution. Lebanese officials, citing security, have delayed charges, but Friday's order opens a path—albeit steep—to freedom for a man long caught in his father's shadow.