Pascal Sleiman’s murder inflames Lebanon’s home front
A gang of Syrian car thieves is suspected in the abduction and murder of the senior leader of the Lebanese Forces. The Maronite party calls the death, a “premeditated crime”. For Minister for Displaced Persons Issam Sharafeddine, thousands of armed Syrians are roaming refugee camps, “ready to take action against the Syrian regime.” Nasrallah denies any Hezbollah involvement and warns against “dangerous” reactions.
Beirut (AsiaNews) – “Don't kill me, I have three children, don't point this gun at my head,” were the last words of Pascal Sleiman, the head of the Lebanese Forces for the Jbeil region, and an employee at Byblos Bank, before he went missing on Sunday night, apparently the victim of a gang of car thieves on a road in the Jbeil region (Byblos).
Syrian soldiers found his body, abandoned, on Sunday in the Hawit area of Syria, a region dominated by gangs; however, the Syrian army knowingly delayed the announcement of the finding, waiting for tempers to calm down. At the time of writing, Sleiman’s remains were still held by the army for the post-mortem.
The quick conclusion of this tragedy was made possible by a set of factors, which Lebanese military security services used, namely the victim’s GPS, pointing to the place a few kilometres from where he was intercepted, driving alone in a black Audi 4x4; cooperation of a unit of the Syrian army commanded by Officer Kifah Melhem; the arrest of three of the kidnappers in Syria; and ratting by a Lebanese mole and people’s smugglers who had realised the repercussions in Lebanon of their crime. The four members of the gang, including their leader Bilal Mohammad Dello (a Syrian), are now in the hands of the Lebanese army.
According to informed sources cited by the Hezbollah-friendly daily Al-Akhbar, the kidnappers did not know who they were dealing with, and only acted because the man was alone in his car.
According to their initial statements, the victim tried to resist his attackers, and was knocked unconscious by several blows to the head with a rifle butt, which caused internal bleeding and death. He was then pushed into the trunk of his own car, which was driven to northern Lebanon and then Syria, via illegal roads.
The news of the death of the father of three was received with great dignity by his wife, Micheline, whose initial words were reported in the press: “We are the children of the resurrection, the children of hope."
However, the case took on a very political tinge, as suspicion initially fell on Hezbollah, which is present in some Shia villages in the region.
Due to popular anger, the northern highway that links Beirut to the coastal city of Tripoli was cut off in both directions throughout the day on Monday, while Shia villagers, feeling threatened, hid in their homes.
On Monday, after the army released information about the incident, tensions subsided, but remarks attributed to the head of the Lebanese Forces, Samir Geagea, cast doubt on their veracity.
While Geagea urged his supporters to reopen the roads, he also said: "We believe this to be a political crime until proven otherwise.”
One of the members of his party, former minister Pierre Bou Assi, was even more blunt: "I don't trust the security services. It's a crime in disguise," he said, citing the false flag operation that followed the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.
Syrians in Lebanon
In any case, and pending the outcome of the case, Pascal Sleiman’s abduction has cast light on the presence of Syrians in Lebanon, estimated by some at more than two million.
Interviewed on Tuesday by Al-Jadid (NTV) television, Lebanon’s Minister of Displaced Persons, Issam Sharafeddine, deplored that this issue has been neglected for months for political reasons.
According to Mr. Sharafeddine, a plan to repatriate Syrian nationals, many of whom are herded into camps in tents and demountable materials, has been deliberately thwarted.
According to the minister, there are "several thousand men in Lebanon who belong to sleeper cells, ready to take action against the Syrian regime” at the signal of certain foreign powers that he did not name.
Going straight to the point, Mr Sharafeddine demanded that Pascal Sleiman's killers "be executed at the very scene of their crime. It will be useless for them to be brought before a magistrate and their trial to last one or two years.”
For his part, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah denied any involvement of Hezbollah in the abduction of Pascal Sleiman, saying to the Lebanese Forces and Kataib: “What you are doing is extremely dangerous and risks provoking a civil war.”
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11/08/2017 20:05
12/07/2006
