Fadel Shaker in front of the Beirut Criminal Court

Preliminary interrogation session for Fadel Shaker in the case of the attempted murder of Sheikh Hilal Hammoud, and postponement of Ahmed Al-Assir’s session. The Military Court has not yet set a date for Shaker’s trial in other cases.

The President of the Criminal Court in Beirut, Judge Bilal Dahnawi, has set a date for a preliminary interrogation session for the artist Fadel Abdel Rahman Shmandar, known as Fadel Shaker, for the day after tomorrow, Wednesday, in the case of the attempted murder of Sheikh Hilal Hammoud in Sidon in 2013.

This session is considered an introduction to referring Shaker to trial before the Criminal Court along with Sheikh Ahmed Al-Assir and others, knowing that the previous session was postponed due to the non-appearance of Al-Assir, and a new date was set for it on December 15.

This development comes at a time when the Military Court has not yet set a date for Shaker’s trial in four other cases in which absentia verdicts have previously been issued against him, ranging from five to fifteen years in prison.

It was indicated last week that the government commissioner to the Military Court, Judge Claude Ghanem, received the minutes of the preliminary investigations conducted by the Army Intelligence Directorate regarding these cases, to be later referred to the President of the Military Court, Judge Wassim Fayyad, to set a date for the first interrogation session.