Eleven Lebanese sentenced to death for collaborating with “Israel”

“ Beirut's military court sentenced 21 more Lebanese, including 11 to death in absentia, for collaborating with “Israel”, a court source said Saturday.

Eleven collaborators accused of having tortured Lebanese resistants in the south Lebanon Khiam prison were sentenced to death in their absence.

Similar charges were dropped against another, due to unsufficient evidence.

The court handed six other prison terms ranging between three weeks and five years.

Three Lebanese who had been sentenced to six years in jail were released because they had already served their terms in Syrian prisons. They were part of a group of Lebanese prisoners released by Damascus in December.

The trials against those accused of collaborating with “Israel” started 10 days after the May 24 withdrawal of “Israeli” troops from Southern Lebanon. Since then, Beirut's military court has tried 2,464 suspected collaborators, including several dozen in absentia.

To this day, 30 have been sentenced to death, all of them in absentia.

 AFP, 7-4-2001