A military investigative judge has charged a Lebanese-American man with murder and torture of Lebanese citizens, crimes he allegedly committed during Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon, judicial officials say. The accusations could carry a death sentence.
In this June 2016 photo provided by Guila Fakhoury, her father Amer Fakhoury holds his granddaughter, Kira, in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. (Guila Fakhoury via AP)
Amer Fakhoury has confessed to working as a senior warden at Khiam Prison, which was run by an Israel-backed Lebanese militia. Fakhoury was detained after returning to his native Lebanon from the US in September.
However, he’s undergoing cancer treatment, and it remains unclear if he’ll be able to stand trial.
The judge, Najat Abu Shakra, referred Fakhoury to a military court where he will be tried, the officials say.
The officials say Abu Shakra charged Fakhoury with “murder and attempted murder of prisoners inside Khiam Prison as well as kidnapping and torture.”
The prison, run by the so-called South Lebanon Army, was abandoned after Israeli forces pulled out of southern Lebanon in 2000, ending an 18-year occupation.
A former inmate of Khiam prison holds a mock gallows during a sit-in near a military court where an arrest warrant was issued for Lebanese-American Amer Fakhoury, who confessed he’d worked for Israel during its occupation of Lebanon for nearly two decades, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, September 17, 2019. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Human rights groups have said in the past that Khiam Prison was a site of torture and detention without trial. Israel denies the allegations.
— AP
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