(Photo : Handout)
Omar bin Omran was kidnapped 27 years ago when he was 17 years old.

A man who was believed to have been kidnapped as a child more than 25 years ago has reportedly been found alive in an underground lair on a neighbor's property.

Omar bin Omran was discovered in the hay-covered hole about 200 yards from his family home in Algeria in what the attorney general's office called a "heinous crime."

Omran disappeared at the age of 17 and his family thought he had been killed during a years-long civil war in the African nation, the Telegraph reported.

A video shared on social media showed security forces rescuing Omran. The video showed him cowering in a hole that had been hidden by a trap door and covered by hay.

 Now 45, he had a long beard and looked dazed.

Prosecutors say his neighbor, only identified as BA is a 61-year-old who has been taken into custody, the Daily Mail reported.

Investigators were reportedly tipped off about the kidnapping after the suspect's brother suggested his sibling was involved in a social media post while the pair were fighting over an inheritance.

Omran told his family that he occasionally saw them from a window on the home where he was held hostage but couldn't call out to them because he was "under a spell," according to local media accounts of his rescue.

Omran's mother died in 2013, always thinking her son was still alive.

"Please, do not stop searching for Omar. I am sure he is still alive," she said in her last moments, local media reported.