Lebanon sentences 36 more for collaboration with “Israel”

“ A Beirut military court has handed down 36 more sentences against Lebanese accused of collaboration with “Israel” during its 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon, a judicial source said Thursday.

Five people were sentenced to 15 years in jail in absentia for "collaboration with the enemy," the source said.

One defendant was found not guilty and another one, accused of collaborating with “Israeli” intelligence, was released for having also assisted the Lebanese services.

The 29 others received jail sentences between one month and five years for entering enemy territory without permission when they lived in once “Israeli”-occupied southern Lebanon, enrolment in the now-disbanded “Israeli”-allied South Lebanon Army and collaboration with the SLA militia.

The convictions bring to 2,211 the number of sentences handed down since June 5, just two weeks after “Israel’s” withdrawal, when Lebanon began trying Lebanese accused of collaboration, some of whom in absentia.

A statement by the government commissioner to the military court, Judge Nasri Lahoud, said that the number of the collaborators detained by Lebanese authorities since the pullout and until January 16 was 2,929 people, Beirut papers reported Thursday.

Among the 2,211 people who have already been tried, 11 people have been sentenced to death and three others to life in prison, but all in absentia.

1-      AFP, 18-1-2001.