BEIRUT — On Dec. 9, Lebanon became the scene of a strange kidnapping that continues to unfold as its machinations and motives are subjected to a plethora of questions.

That day, news spread that an armed group had lured Hannibal Gadhafi, 40, the fifth and youngest son of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, from Syria, where he lived, to the Lebanese border, where he was kidnapped. A few hours later, a video surfaced in which he said his kidnapping was linked to potential information he was thought to have about the August 1978 disappearance in Libya of Lebanese Shiite cleric Imam Musa al-Sadr and two companions, Sheikh Mohammad Yacoub and journalist Abbas Badreddine.

Two days after the video aired, the media in Beirut announced that the kidnappers had contacted the Lebanese Internal Security Forces’ Information Branch and arranged to hand over Gadhafi to them. The oddities did not end there.

Despite Gadhafi having been a toddler at the time Sadr and his aides disappeared, Lebanese judicial officials filed charges Dec. 16 accusing him of withholding evidence related to the Sadr case. A few hours later, the Syrian government submitted a formal request for his extradition on grounds the former Libyan official had been granted political asylum in Syria, where he had been living.