-Samar dies
After the Lebanese Council of Ministers approved last week the agreement to extradite Syrian convicts to their homeland, it is expected that the agreement will be signed this week between the Lebanese and Syrian parties, as a step that paves the way for a new phase of judicial cooperation between the two countries. However, this move raised many questions about its possible effects, especially in light of the dissatisfaction of Lebanese prisoners, especially those convicted in the same cases in which Syrian prisoners were convicted, of being excluded from any similar treatment, which prompted a number of them to announce a hunger strike about a week ago.
In this context, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Lebanese Government, Tariq Mitri, who is assigned to sign on the Lebanese side, while either the Minister of Justice or the Minister of Foreign Affairs will sign on the Syrian side, considered that concluding the agreement “constitutes an advanced step in terms of addressing the outstanding problems between the two countries, and a real opportunity to build new relations with Syria in a way that serves the highest interests of both countries.” In parallel, I learned that the agreement will include about 300 Syrian convicts who have spent ten years or more in Lebanese prisons.
Administrative measures before delivery
Immediately after the signing of the Convention and its entry into force, the initiation of extradition operations remains linked to specific administrative and legal procedures. In this context, a judicial source confirmed that “carrying out extradition operations requires adopting clear measures, as every convict who meets the conditions and wishes to be transferred to his country must submit a written request through his legal representative, provided that this request is subject to approval in accordance with the approved procedures.”
The source explained that transfers of convicts may be carried out in batches or individually, based on the pace of completion of transactions and in coordination with the Syrian side, with agreement on the delivery mechanism, whether inside prisons or at the Lebanese-Syrian border crossings. As for the possibility of completing deliveries before the next month of Ramadan, the source indicated that this “remains subject to the speed of completion of procedures, pointing out that the agreement stipulates that deliveries will be carried out within a maximum period of three months.”
The Lebanese prisoner crisis
While this agreement is expected to contribute to addressing part of the overcrowding crisis inside Lebanese prisons and alleviating the suffering of prisoners, in return, it may increase tension between the state and Lebanese prisoners, who demand the same and reject any partial solution that benefits Syrians to the exclusion of others, especially in cases where Lebanese and Syrian prisoners share the same cases.
In this context, the source stressed that “the Syrian convicts will not be released, but rather will be handed over to their country to complete the execution of the remainder of their sentences there,” stressing that “a meeting was held a while ago in the government palace, in the presence of the discriminatory public prosecutor, Judge Jamal Al-Hajjar, and a judicial delegation, which concluded on the necessity of accelerating the pace of trials, deciding on requests for release, and addressing the issues pending before the investigating judges, while emphasizing the inadmissibility of continuing detentions without “Legal justification.” However, these efforts faltered due to the strike of judicial assistants that has been ongoing for weeks, and which will extend until next Friday, with subsequent escalation steps to be determined in light of developments, amid information about the possibility of the judges themselves joining the movements, after the warning strike announced by the Judges Club last Tuesday.
