BEIRUT (AFP) Lebanon has issued an arrest warrant for Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi over the disappearance 30 years ago of a senior Shi’a Muslim cleric after a visit to Libya, officials said on Wednesday. Kadhafi was also indicted for allegedly “inciting the abduction” of Imam Mussa Sadr, the spiritual guide of Lebanon’s Shi’a community, investigating magistrate Samih el-Hajj said in a charge sheet.

An “arrest warrant” was issued for Kadhafi and six other Libyan suspects who were also indicted for taking part in the alleged abduction, according to a copy of the charge sheet obtained by AFP.

Sadr, who founded the opposition Amal movement now led by parliament speaker Nabih Berri, disappeared while in Libya with two companions, Mohammed Yacoub and Abbas Badreddin in 1978.

There has been no trace of the three men since.

Libya maintains that the trio left for Italy on August 31, 1978 after their stay in Tripoli and that it has no idea what happened to them afterwards.

The arrest warrant against Kadhafi was issued in virtue of Lebanese law which allows magistrates to take such measures against suspects who fail to respond to an official summons.

In February, a Lebanese court had given Kadhafi two months to appear for questioning over the disappearance of Sadr, after an official summons sent to Libya through diplomatic channels was not heeded by the Libyan leader.

Lebanon reopened the case in 2004 after relatives of Sadr and his companions lodged several complaints with the authorities demanding action and amid accusations by the influential Hizbullah movement of Libyan involvement.