by Fady Noun

Damascus wants to secure the release of fellow citizens who have been detained without trial in Lebanon for years and are ideologically close to HTS. Their arrest was based on ideological motives linked to mere suspicion. According to Lebanese ministerial sources, there are at least 2,100 of them, 55% of whom have never appeared in court. At the root of the controversy are the civil war in Syria and Hezbollah's hegemony.

Beirut (AsiaNews) - The unconditional release of hundreds of Syrian Islamists, arrested and detained for years without trial in Lebanon solely because of their political opinions, is essential for the improvement of bilateral relations between Lebanon and Syria.

This was stated in a television interview by the Deputy Prime Minister, Tarek Mitri, who is in charge of closing this long-standing dossier, which continues to poison relations between the two countries.

This is a grave injustice that has caused intolerable family tragedies: husbands torn from their wives, fathers from their children, and teenagers deprived of a future. According to corroborating sources, the reason for the coldness shown by the new regime in Damascus towards Lebanon is to be found nowhere else but in this tragedy, which has been systematically and deliberately suppressed for years.

In fact, no Syrian ministerial-level official has visited Beirut to date, while numerous Lebanese religious and political figures have already travelled to Syria, including Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, Mufti of the Republic Abdel Latif Deriane and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. This situation is set to change with the unexpected arrival today of Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani, who is expected in Beirut, a sign that developments are moving in the right direction.

At the same time, a meeting is being prepared between President Ahmad al-Sharaa and Lebanese Deputy Prime Minister Tarek Mitri, on the sidelines of the Arab-Russian Economic Forum on 15 October, as confirmed by an authorised Syrian source.

Those who know Mitri's placidity and calmness could sense the emotion in his voice. ‘If it were up to me,’ he said during a widely watched political programme on New TV, ‘I would release these detainees immediately.’ This speaks volumes about the gravity of the injustice suffered by several hundred Syrian political prisoners in Lebanon.

Prisoners of conscience

Mitri spoke the day after the second visit to Beirut, since the beginning of September, of a delegation composed of former ministers and the president of the Syrian National Commission for the Disappeared: a body tasked primarily, on behalf of Damascus, with securing the release of Syrians close to Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the core of the ruling coalition in the Arab country, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) or the al-Nusra Front.

These individuals were arbitrarily arrested in Lebanon after the outbreak of the Syrian revolution in 2011, sometimes on mere suspicion or because of a number on their mobile phone, and detained without trial, some for more than 10 years, in the overcrowded Roumieh central prison.

These arrests were carried out in Islamist circles under pressure from Hezbollah, which, after repeatedly denying its presence in Syria in support of Bashar al-Assad's dictatorship, officially confirmed in 2017 that it had 10,000 fighters in Syria. In this regard, according to the Lebanese Ministry of the Interior, the total number of Syrians detained in Lebanon is 2,100, of whom 55% remain without trial.

It should be noted, however, that not all of them are prisoners of conscience and that Lebanese prisons also hold common criminals and Syrians arrested for participating in fighting against the Lebanese army.

Mitri said that, thanks to the bilateral committees currently at work, a new judicial memorandum of understanding between Lebanon and Syria is being studied, the signing of which will allow for the immediate and unconditional release of several hundred Syrians (between 500 and 800, according to him).

Some Lebanese Salafists are also awaiting their release, including the famous imam Ahmad el-Assir, who was arrested in 2013 after clashes with troops in Abra, near Sidon. Eighteen soldiers and eleven militiamen were killed in these clashes. The imam is calling for a general amnesty.

Other sensitive cases

In the meantime, other sensitive cases will be examined, including those of Lebanese nationals who are reported missing in Syria. This issue remains one of the deepest wounds in the country's recent history.

During Syrian rule (1976-2005), thousands of Lebanese were kidnapped or imprisoned, often without trial or information about their fate. According to the NGO Solide, some 650 Lebanese are still missing in Syria. A number of returns since the current HTS-led coalition came to power have only served to reignite interest in this case.

However, the Syrian authorities have warned their Lebanese counterparts that such searches are made difficult by the dispersal of files in prisons that characterised the early days of the Syrian revolution.

The demarcation of borders is also among the projects underway. Mitri spoke of eight border areas between Syria and Lebanon characterised by a mixture of populations and therefore of real estate, where each population considers itself at home.

The minister also assured that the illegal entry of weapons and fighters into Lebanon via illegal paths and routes has now been blocked and that efforts are now focused on drug trafficking.

Hannibal Gaddafi and Fadl Shaker

Nevertheless, it should be noted that with the new political era ushered in in Lebanon by the rise to power of the Joseph Aoun-Nawaf Salam tandem, the climate of impunity is diminishing. And some of the dysfunctions of justice that characterised the period of Hezbollah's hegemony seem to be on the verge of being corrected.

It is therefore likely that Hannibal Gaddafi, son of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who has been detained in Lebanon since 2015 in connection with the 1978 disappearance of Imam Moussa Sadre in Libya, may soon be released.

Kidnapped by a Shiite group on the border between Lebanon and Syria and then handed over to the Lebanese police on charges of aiding and abetting, Hannibal Gaddafi was less than three years old at the time of the events.

Two weeks ago, Lebanese Justice Minister Adel Nassar stated that ‘a request for release has been filed by his French lawyer’ and that he is ‘awaiting a decision’ from investigating judge Zaher Hamadé. The latter, considered close to the Speaker of the House, has not questioned him since... 2017.

Meanwhile, detained in a 4.5-square-metre underground cell, Hannibal Gaddafi has paid for his brutal imprisonment with his health.

In addition, Fadl Chaker, a famous Lebanese crooner who became a Salafist and was sentenced in absentia in 2020 to 22 years for participating in clashes with the army, surrendered to army intelligence at the entrance to the large Palestinian refugee camp of Aïn el-Héloué, near Sidon. The man, who proclaims his innocence, had been wanted for years.