Lebanese-American who served in Israel-backed militia dies months after prison release

CONCORD, New Hampshire — Amer Fakhoury, an American who was jailed for months in Lebanon and later released over decades-old murder and torture charges that he denied, has died, his family says. He was 57.

Fakhoury, a restaurant owner in Dover, New Hampshire, died at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. He had been diagnosed with Stage 4 lymphoma while in prison.

He had been visiting family in Lebanon in September when he was detained. Lebanese officials accused him of torturing prisoners in the 1990s at a prison run by the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army.

Fakhoury’s family and lawyer said he worked at the former Khiam Prison, but had no direct contact with inmates and was never involved in any interrogation or torture. They said he was illegally detained.

In March, a judge dismissed the charges after US officials worked to free him. The US officials felt Fakhoury’s detention in September was instigated by the Hezbollah terror organization, which the South Lebanon Army had opposed in the conflict.

In a statement, Fakhoury’s family says he was tortured “under the hands of Hezbollah.”

“God loved Amer Fakhoury so much that he took him out of the hands of these terrorists and brought him to his family in America to live out his last days,” they say.

Fakhoury became a US citizen last year. His lawyer and family said he fled Lebanon in 2001 through Israel, eventually making his way to the United States, because of death threats he and many other SLA members received after Israel ended its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.

— Agencies