After the meeting, Murqos stated, “We stand by the family of Samir Kassab, who was forcibly disappeared,” stressing that the ministry “considers Samir’s case an absolute priority.” He revealed that he had made a series of official contacts since last November with Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Mitri, who is in charge of the Lebanese-Syrian relations file, especially with regard to the missing and detainees, and pointed out that he sent him an official letter on November 17, 2025, to follow up on the issue through diplomatic channels.
He explained that Mitri added the file to the ongoing discussions with the Syrian side, noting that he also presented the issue to the Council of Ministers on November 20, “to become an official responsibility undertaken by the Lebanese state with all its institutions.”
Murqos stated that he contacted the Syrian Minister of Information, Hamza Al-Mustafa, and met with him on November 26 in Cairo, and presented him with “accurate information collected during the past period,” and revealed that the Syrian Minister referred the file to the competent authorities “according to the new system,” in reference to the new security-judicial cooperation between Beirut and Damascus after the change in the political reality in Syria.
The Minister of Information pointed to the agreement on a set of measures, the most important of which are:
обратиться в Министерство юстиции Ливана с официальной просьбой об отслеживании и завершении судебных процедур, связанных с делом Кассаба.
Addressing the National Commission for the Missing and Forcibly Disappeared, established under Law 105/2018.
Preparing a comprehensive file that includes all documents and information collected over the past years from the Kassab family and media and human rights organizations that had followed up on the case.
Murqos affirmed that “human rights are not slogans, but a commitment and responsibility,” and considered that the coincidence of the meeting with the International Human Rights Day “is not a coincidence, but a message that the file of the missing is a national wound that cannot be ignored.”
Murqos thanked the media, considering that “reporting the details of what we are doing is a humanitarian duty before it is a professional one,” and called on “everyone who has information, no matter how small,” to provide it, because it may be the key to revealing the fate of Samir and others like him.
He also praised “the cooperation of the Syrian authorities in this regard,” stressing that the Ministry of Information “does not make promises that cannot be achieved, but makes the utmost efforts available in accordance with legal and diplomatic channels.”
It is worth mentioning that the Kassab case returned to the spotlight after the Minister of Information raised an official letter to the Deputy Prime Minister on October 17, 2025, demanding that the file be followed up with the Syrian side through the Lebanese-Syrian Committee concerned with the missing. At the Council of Ministers session on November 20, the government adopted the request and considered it one of its priorities.
On November 26, 2025, Murqos held an expanded meeting with the Syrian Minister of Information at the headquarters of the League of Arab States in Cairo, where he stressed the inclusion of the Kassab case at the forefront of the joint files.
It should be noted that Samir Kassab, a photographer for “Sky News Arabia,” went missing in Syria with his colleague Ishaq Mukhtar and escort Adnan Ajaj in October 2013 during a journalistic mission near Aleppo. Since then, the file has remained pending in the absence of any reliable official information about their fate.
