A “book” that was mentioned in the indictment, but was found not to be present in the case file, became the focus of the eighth session before the military court in the file of those accused of planning assassinations and bombings in the southern suburbs coinciding with the funeral of the former Secretary General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, after it sparked a debate between the court and the defense team, which ended with the session being postponed until next August.
A debate broke out inside the courtroom between the head of the military court, Brigadier General Wassim Fayyad, and the defense team for the detainee, Muhammad Abdullah Saleh, against the backdrop of a phrase that appeared at the end of the indictment in the session docket, which stated: “A letter was also sent to General Security regarding the assassination of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in relation to Saleh.”
Lawyer Saliba Al-Hajj, one of Saleh’s defense agents, considered that this book affected the course of the trial, pointing out that the defense had not been informed of it or seen its content, which requires clarification.
However, the president of the court was quick to deny the existence of any letter of this type in the case file, stressing that the court had not sent any letter to Public Security, and said: “It does not exist at all, and it was not sent. An error occurred and the perpetrator will be held accountable.”
But lawyer Al-Hajj stuck to his position, stressing that “the defense was surprised by the presence of a letter sent to Public Security,” while lawyer Muhammad Sablouh, from Saleh’s defense team, intervened to reveal that the Public Security Service extracted his client from prison following the assassination of Nasrallah and interrogated him in his presence, adding that the investigation ended with the recording of a 12-page written statement in Saleh’s handwriting.
In the face of this controversy, Brigadier Fayyad decided to postpone the session until August, saying: “I want to know what this book is about,” and he also allowed the defense agents to present their legal demands.
The representative of the detainees, Omran Shibli and Ahmed Al-Ghosn, lawyer Jocelyn Al-Rai, objected to the postponement decision, considering that the trial had entered its eighth session without the court being able yet to begin questioning any of the detainees.
In this case, in addition to Muhammad Abdullah Saleh, Omran Shibli, Ahmed Al-Ghosn, and the detainees Palestinian Ibrahim Al-Ali and Syrian Lynn Mustafa are being tried in this case, in addition to the fugitive Younis Ahmed and the Ukrainian-Syrian Khaled Al-Aidi, who, according to the case file, managed to escape from his place of detention affiliated with Hezbollah in the southern suburbs while the building was subjected to an Israeli raid, before taking refuge in the Ukrainian embassy, while later information spoke about him leaving Lebanon in the process of It was carried out by the Israeli army on the coast of Jounieh.
According to the indictment, the defendants are accused of forming a group working on behalf of the Israeli enemy and the Mossad, as Saleh and Al-Aidi were charged with transporting weapons, explosives, “dead mail,” and money, and carrying out logistical work in preparation for assassinations and bombings. Saleh is also accused of providing the Mossad with security information and coordinates and plotting against officials in the “Islamic Group,” which, according to the decision, enabled the enemy to assassinate them.
The decision also accuses Ibrahim Al-Ali and Lynn Mustafa of providing logistical support for the Mossad, while Omran Shibli and Ahmed Al-Ghosn are credited with providing logistical assistance to enemy agents, in addition to the participation of Al-Ali, Shibli, Al-Ghosn and Mustafa in transporting “dead mail” and a “Wrangler” car loaded with weapons and explosives, in preparation for their use in carrying out assassination operations. The indictment concludes with the phrase that sparked the session: “A letter was also sent to General Security regarding the assassination of Nasrallah in relation to Saleh.”
