Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, second son of the late deposed Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi, has been freed in a move which could fuel further instability in Libya.
His father's preferred successor, he had been held by a militia in the town of Zintan for the past six years.
The Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Battalion said he had been released on Friday but he has not been seen in public.
His lawyer, Khaled al-Zaidi, confirmed he had been released.
He declined to say which city Saif al-Islam had travelled to for security reasons.
A source has told the BBC he is in the Tobruk area of eastern Libya.
The Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Battalion said it was acting on a request from the "interim government".
That government - based in the east of the country - had already offered amnesty to Saif al-Islam.
However, he has been sentenced to death in absentia by a court in Tripoli, in the west of the country, where control is in the hands of the rival, UN-backed Government of National Accord.
Saif al-Islam is wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity during his father's unsuccessful attempts to put down the rebellion against his rule.
The Zintan Military Council - which had previously been involved in his detention - and Zintan's municipal council have condemned his release by the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Battalion.
The councils said in a statement that freeing Saif al-Islam was "a form of collusion, a betrayal of the blood of the martyrs and stab in the back of the military body to which they [the brigade] claim to belong".
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