Lebanon: Seven Syrians nabbed for Pascal Sleiman murder
A Lebanese judicial official claimed that seven Syrian nationals were arrested on April 9th, under suspicion of the kidnapping and murder of a local politician opposed to Syria’s Assad regime, according to AFP. The killing has exacerbated tensions between Lebanon’s Christian and Shia communities, while footage of anti-Syrian violence circulates on social media.
Pascal Sleiman was the Lebanese Forces Party coordinator for the Byblos (Jbail) area, north of Beirut, abducted and killed on April 7th.
The judicial official said, “the number of people arrested for kidnapping and killing … Sleiman, rose to seven, all of them Syrian,” who confessed to pistol-whipping Sleiman on the head and face until he stopped resisting.
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Sleiman died in the boot of his car as he was driven across the Syrian border, before being dumped in an area renowned for its lawlessness and where Hezbollah purportedly holds sway.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a body fitting the description of the victim was found, wrapped in a blanket and “had been hit on the head and chest with a hard object.”
While the army initially echoed the suspects’ confession “that their goal was stealing the victim’s car,” social media users were quick to implicate Hezbollah whose secretary-general ,Hassan Nasrallah, denied the claims.
In an April 8th televised address, Nasrallah stated that Sleiman’s killing “had nothing to do with politics and has nothing to do with Hezbollah.”
The Lebanese Forces, a Christian party which opposes al-Assad’s Damascus regime and its Iran-backed Shia ally in Lebanon, Hezbollah, said it considers Sleiman’s murder a “political assassination until proven otherwise.”
Criticism of Hezbollah from Lebanon’s Christian community has surged in recent weeks, particularly after its fighters were confronted by locals on March 31st while trying to fire rockets into Israel from the Christian village of Rmeish in southern Lebanon, according to Reuters.
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On April 8th, hundreds of Lebanese civilians reacted to Sleiman’s death by blocking roads around Byblos, while footage of violence against Syrians circulated on social media.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, condemned the killing and called for “everyone to exercise self-control.”
AFP / Reuters
