hit with women, who admired his looks and his elegance and were pleased that they did not have to scurry out of living rooms and meetings when he arrived, as they did with ulama of more conservative outlook. As befitting a man of the religious mantle, he refrained from shaking hands with women, and his aides and companions forewarned Christian women who were to meet him that they should not try to shake hands. But even this prohibition was violated now and them. A woman who admitted being drawn to him, being nearly hypnotized by him, once held out a hand to him, and he took it between his two hands, saying that he was not supposed to do so, and that he was doing what he shouldn't be doing, that he would not do it again. Disappearance On 25 August 1978, al-Sadr and two companions, Sheikh Muhammad Yaacoub and journalist Abbas Badreddine, departed for Libya to meet with government officials at the invitation of Muammar Gaddafi. The three were last seen on 31 August. They were never heard from again. It is widely believed, at least by Lebanese Shia Muslims, that Gaddafi ordered al-Sadr's killing, but differing motivations exist. Libya has consistently denied responsibility, claiming that Sadr and his companions left Libya for Italy. However, supporters of the missing cleric pointed out that al-Sadr's baggage was found in a Tripoli hotel and there was no evidence of his arrival in Rome. Airlines could not confirm that al-Sadr had ever flown to Italy from Libya. Al-Sadr's son claimed that he remains secretly in jail in Libya but did not provide proof. Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri claimed that the Libyan regime, and particularly the Libyan leader, was responsible for the disappearance of Imam Musa al-Sadr, as London-based Asharq Al-Awsat, a Saudi-run pan-Arab daily, reported on 27 August 2006.المجلس الشيعي في لبنان يدعو ليبيا إلى «كشف لغز» اختفاء موسى الصدر, أخبار According to Iranian General Mansour Qadar, the head of Syrian security, Rifaat al-Assad, told the Iranian ambassador to Syria that Gaddafi planned to kill al-Sadr. On 27 August 2008, Gaddafi was indicted by the government of Lebanon for al-Sadr's disappearance. Following the fall of the Gaddafi regime, Lebanon and Iran appealed to the Libyan rebels to investigate the fate of Musa al-Sadr. Political analyst Roula Talj has said that Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, told her that al-Sadr and his