An Islamist cleric who was once Lebanon’s most-wanted fugitive is sentenced to death on Thursday before a military court after being found guilty of terrorism, a judiciary source says.
Arrested in 2015, Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir was tried along with 38 other Islamists accused of killing Lebanese soldiers in the southern city of Sidon in 2013.
The court also sentences to death two other defendants and five Islamists who remain at large, including the cleric’s brother.
Capital punishment is legal in Lebanon, but there has been an effective moratorium in place since 2004, without any executions carried out despite judgments to that effect.
Singer-turned-fundamentalist Fadel Shaker, who was tried in absentia, is sentenced to 15 years in prison, while the other 30 defendants are handed life sentences.
The charges are in connection with clashes between Assir’s supporters and the army that broke out in Sidon on June 24, 2013.
FILE – In this March 4, 2011, file photo, Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, a Lebanese anti-Syrian regime leader, addresses his supporters during a demonstration against Syrian President Bashar Assad at the Martyrs square in Beirut, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla,File)
— AFP
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