BEIRUT —
Lebanon arrested five State
Security agents Saturday on suspicion of torturing to death a Syrian detainee,
in the latest abuse allegation against the security services, a judicial source
told AFP.
اضافة اعلان
The arrests came on the orders of the government’s
commissioner to the military courts, Fadi Akiki, who had ordered an
investigation into last month’s death in custody, the source said.
The young Syrian “died within three hours of his
arrest after being subjected to severe torture and beatings that triggered a
heart attack”, the source said, adding that the detainee was pronounced dead on
arrival in hospital.
The State
Security agents arrested Bashar Abdel Saud on August 31 and took him to an
agency facility in Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon for questioning with other
detainees.
The agents wanted to “obtain a confession from the
deceased suspect that he was the leader of a cell” linked to Daesh but he
“persisted in denying the allegation”, according to the source.
In pictures seen by AFP, the body of the deceased
was covered in cuts and bruises. The bodies of fellow detainees who survived
their ordeal also bore signs of torture.
The state security agency, which has faced multiple
allegations of torture in the past, said Abdel Saud’s death had been referred
to the “competent authorities”.
Lebanon passed a law banning the use of torture in
September 2017, but in March last year human rights group
Amnesty International
published a report detailing the alleged use of torture against 26 Syrian
refugees “arbitrarily detained on counter-terror charges”.
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