Outrage over Lebanese court acquittal of notorious Israeli agent ‘under US pressure’

A Beirut tribunal has dropped charges against an Israeli collaborator accused of overseeing the torture and killing of captives at a prison facility in southern Lebanon some two decades ago, in a verdict that the Hezbollah resistance movement and rights activists say was issued under pressure from the US.

Amer Fakhoury — a dual Lebanese-American national — was accused of murder, attempted murder, kidnapping and torture while presiding over Khiam Prison run by the Israeli-sponsored South Lebanon Army (SLA)militia group — formed by army defectors — during the regime’s 1982-2000 occupation of southern Lebanon.

Widely known as the ‘Butcher of Khiam,’ he fled Lebanon along with hundreds of other SLA members after the Lebanese army, backed by Hezbollah, drove Israel out of the country in 2000.

Following southern Lebanon’s liberation, the prison camp was preserved in the condition it had been abandoned by SLA militiamen and converted into a museum by the Lebanese government.

Fakhoury settled in the US state of New Hampshire, but was arrested last September when he returned to Lebanon on vacation to visit his family.

On Monday, the Beirut court ordered his release, saying more than 10 years had passed since the defendant allegedly kidnapped, imprisoned and tortured the Lebanese held at the prison camp, the official National News Agency of Lebanon reported.

Lebanon’s intelligence service said Fakhoury had confessed during questioning to being a warden at Khiam Prison.

Hezbollah: US pressure paid off

Hezbollah condemned the ruling as a “miserable step for justice” and said the court had turned a blind eye to the crimes he had committed.

The movement added that the US had exerted pressure on the Lebanese government since Fakhoury was taken into custody.

“It seems that the US pressures have unfortunately paid off as the military tribunal has unexpectedly taken this wrong decision” while ignoring all the pain and wounds suffered by the victims, the statement added.

 “This is a sad day for Lebanon and justice,” said the movement, stressing that staff members of the military tribunal should have chosen to step down instead of submitting to American pressure.

“It was more honorable and more effective for the head and members of the military court to submit their resignations rather than to yield to the pressures that forced them to take this sinister decision,” it said.

Hezbollah further urged the Lebanese judiciary to review its wrong decision “for the sake of the rights of the Lebanese, the tortured and oppressed, as well as everyone who sacrificed for the sake of his homeland and the liberation of his land.”

US role in Fakhoury’s release

In January, US Senator Jeanne Shaheen said she was drafting a sanctions bill against Lebanon “to hold those accountable who are complicit in Mr. Fakhoury’s arrest.”

Aya Majzoub, Lebanon researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW), told the Doha-based Al Jazeera broadcaster that Fakhoury’s acquittal, “reportedly due to a US threat to impose sanctions, makes a mockery” of Lebanon’s justice system.

Fakhoury’s release, she added, underscored the need to reform the 2017 anti-torture law, which sets a 10-year statute of limitations on prosecution of torture. 

“Fakhoury is set to walk away scot-free despite credible evidence pointing to his involvement in the torture of thousands and the murder of several detainees at the infamous Khiam Prison,” Majzoub said. 

‘An insult to freed captives’

Nabih Awada, an ex-inmate at Khiam Prison and one of the plaintiffs in the case, said Fakhoury, who was a top-level commander at the jail, had threatened to kill him shortly before he was released in 1998.

 “The decision by the Lebanese court today to let this man free is an insult to the freed detainees and their families and a submission by Lebanese authorities to the legacy of the Israeli occupation,” he said. 

Awadaalso suspected that the US influence played a leading role in the court’s decision, adding, “Political forces and the judiciary in this country bow to the Americans.”