Lebanon forms ‘crisis group’ to follow up on Lebanese released from Syria’s prisons

Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati decided on Monday to form a “crisis group” to follow up on the issue of missing Lebanese citizens after the release of prisoners and detainees from Syria’s prisons. The first such prisoner, Suhail Hamwi, arrived in Lebanon on Sunday after spending more than 33 years in prison in Syria, reported the official Lebanese News Agency.

According to Mikati’s media office, the crisis group will work alongside the Judicial Committee and the National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared.

Based on Mikati’s request, the Secretary-General of the Council of Ministers, Judge Mahmoud Makkieh, asked the relevant ministries and public institutions to “follow up urgently on the issue of detainees released from Syrian prisons.”

During the 29-years of Syrian presence in Lebanon (1976-2005), a number of Lebanese citizens were arrested and transferred to Syrian prisons for several reasons, including belonging to parties opposed to its presence, or suspicion of cooperating with parties “hostile” to the Syrian regime. Moreover, some Lebanese were forcibly disappeared without knowing the real reasons behind their arrest, especially during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990).

The Syrian regime released 121 Lebanese detainees in 1998, and another 54 in 2000. However, sources in Lebanon put the number of citizens held in Syria in the hundreds, although the now ousted Assad regime has always denied this. According to NGO the Association of Lebanese Political Prisoners in Syrian Prisons, the number of Lebanese “forcibly disappeared” in Syrian prisons stands at 622.

READ: Assad regime has killed most forcibly disappeared, says rights group