Lebanon’s Salafist, Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir Trials: An Explainer
Ana Maria Luca/Now Lebanon/November 07/15
When Salafist Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir, clean shaven and disguised, was arrested at the Beirut airport on his way to Cairo this August, there was little doubt he would face serious charges. He reportedly admitted immediately to funding a group led by another Salafist cleric, Sheikh Khaled Hoblos, whose sermons often openly supported Jabhat al-Nusra and whose mosque displayed the group’s flag. The charges, which were already serious before Assir’s arrest, accumulated over a few weeks while he was interrogated. He’s accused of murder and attempted murder of military personnel, including officers, as well as civilians; incitement to murder army officers; forming sleeper cells in order to carry out “terror acts” and assassinations of religious, political, and military figures; forming an armed group with intent to undermine state authority; funding a separate armed group led by the militant Khaled Hoblos; “incitement of sectarian strife;” and damage to public and private property. The trial has already been postponed twice.
The next hearing was set for January 2016 at the request of the defense lawyer. The excuse was that Assir needs the approval of Dar al-Fatwa, the only Sunni religious authority recognized by the Lebanese state, in order to appear in court. However, being a Salafist cleric, Assir is not officially recognized by Dar al-Fatwa as a Sunni cleric in Lebanon. Both lawyers and members of the Salafi community expect the trial to be postponed for much longer. Salafist detainees investigated by the Lebanese security forces usually face long legal procedures. Nabil Halabi, human rights lawyer and executive director of the Lebanese Institute for Democracy and Human Rights (LIFE), says this is so not only because of the political implications of Salafist trials, but also because of the lack of due process in a complicated legal system based on the military court, which is the only court in Lebanon that handles terrorism and security cases.
The average Salafist trial
Lawyers are used to waiting for months, sometimes years, before a case is even sent to the military court. Halabi told NOW that Islamist detainees are detained without charges and kept in detention by the security forces without being given a reason. When they are sent to the military court things get even more complicated. “If any of the detainees said things in the court contrary to what they’d said in the primary investigations in the Defense Ministry, or accuses the investigators of torture, they get sent back to military intelligence where they are investigated once again, sometimes by the same people,” Halabi said. This raises questions over how real the evidence is. It also leads to situations in which people who have served years in prison are eventually released for lack of evidence.
In many cases, Salafists are detained for being part of militant groups, Halabi says. Investigations last much longer because the members are not tried individually but rather as a group. The security forces rarely arrest all the group members at the same time, and those arrested first have to wait until the rest of the group are detained before they are sent to court as a group. These practices also delay the trials. Other legal sources familiar with the process say that many times the confessions of the detainees are obtained under alleged torture. Allegations of torture have been documented by several international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch. In these cases, lawyers usually contest the primary investigation in court. The detainees appear at a hearing and most say that they were forced to sign a confession. That also takes time, and erstwhile the detainees remain in prison.
Political pressure
The same sources also explain that Salafists’ trials are also sensitive because there is always political pressure. It all goes back to the Syrian crisis and how the political factions in Lebanon position themselves in relation to the war. Most activist Salafist leaders support the Syrian rebel factions and are outspoken against Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria. They also gained a lot of political support towards the beginning of the Syrian crisis. Many militants fought in Syria and also were involved in attacks against Hezbollah that also killed civilians. The political battle over which political faction controls Lebanese security is also visible in how the cases of Salafists are treated: the pro-Syrian March 8 movement controls security institution hunts for Salafists and arrests them indiscriminately, which creates more unrest among the Salafist community against the Lebanese Army.
A Salafist sheikh based in Tripoli told NOW on condition of anonymity that, indeed, most young men who attend Salafist mosques fear they might be arrested. “People just stay in their neighborhood; they don’t go out anymore,” he said. “The authorities issued around 1,000 or more warrants for the people who participated in the clashes that took place between Jabal Mohsen and Bab al-Tabanneh. But in 2014 the Ministry of Justice decided to withdraw the warrants. However, it seems that some security institutions, such as General Security and Military Intelligence, continue to arrest people.” The sheikh also said that many young men are afraid not so much of getting caught but that it will take a long time for the state security apparatus to admit that there is no evidence to incriminate them.
The precedents
Such arbitrary detention has happened before. Tripoli-based Salafists were arrested in connection with the Nahr al-Bared war against jihadist Fatah al-Islam. According to Halabi, many young men were detained for years without being charged. In some cases, he says, the trials were resumed in 2014 after Ashraf Rifi was named Minister of Justice. “When the cases were reopened, they found that some of the detainees were innocent. In other cases, the prisoners were released after the ends of their sentences. Also, could you imagine that some were accused and sentenced for terrorism and received the death penalty because they did not appear on time before the court. They claim it was because of the absence of a private courtroom. When the retrial began, they turned out to be innocent. Can you imagine that they were detained for seven-and-a-half years?” Another spin to many of their stories is that after being charges of belonging to Fatah al-Islam or militant Salafist groups, they were charged with possession of assault rifles. “In this country almost every family owns one!” Halabi adding that this approach angers the Sunni community and leads to resentment and even to terrorism.
“Most of the time, terrorism comes from injustice and not just from deviant ideologies.”Ahmad al-Assir was the main figure in the Abra clashes that took place in June 2013 between his supporters, the Lebanese Army and, reportedly, members of the Resistance Brigades. He was indicted for these incidents, which carry the risk of a death penaly, in February 2014, and many others were arrested for supporting him. “Many were arrested incommunicado [without a warrant issued by a judicial authority] despite the fact that the government cancelled that type of warrant, which was used heavily during the Syrian occupation of Lebanon,” Halabi said. “The thing is that as long as you’re accused of terrorism on any type of evidence, the Lebanese Criminal Code allows the judge to detain you indefinitely. And that is a long time.”
