Fourteen Lebanese sentenced for collaborating with “Israel”

“ Beirut's military court sentenced 14 more Lebanese for collaborating with the "“Israeli” enemy", court sources said Tuesday.

Thirteen people received sentences ranging from one to 18 months in jail for collaboration, entering "enemy territory", and serving with the now-disbanded “Israeli”-allied South Lebanon Army militia, they said.

A 14th SLA member was sentenced in absentia to seven years in jail for collaboration and serving with the militia.

The court also sentenced to seven and a half years in jail two men who were part of a group of Lebanese prisoners released by Syria in December, for collaboration with “Israel”.

Raja Salman Kabalan and Elias Lutfallah Tanios, had served prison terms of respectively ten and eight and a half years for the same reasons.

On Saturday, the court sentenced 21 Lebanese for collaboration with “Israel”, including 11 former SLA members to death in absentia for having tortured Lebanese resistants in the notorious Khiam prison in the former “Israeli”-occupied border zone in southern Lebanon.

The trials against those accused of collaborating with “Israel” started 10 days after the May 24 pullout of “Israeli” troops from Southern Lebanon. Since then, Beirut's military court has tried 2,478 suspected collaborators.

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

AFP, 10-4-2001.