The long-awaited preliminary interrogation of over 100 Islamists held at Roumieh prison since 2007 will begin Friday, head of the Higher Judicial Council Jean Fahd said. Most of the prisoners, who are allegedly linked to Fatah al-Islam, have been held without trial.
The interrogations, which will take place at Beirut’s Justice Palace, are scheduled for Friday after Fahd said the files of the cases of each inmate had been distributed to relevant authorities.
“Better late than never,” Sheikh Nabil Rahim, a Tripoli-based sheikh who has spearheaded efforts to accelerate the trial of the inmates, said after hearing the news.
Rahim held a protest in Tripoli last month to pressure the government to hold the trials for the prisoners. He was arrested in early 2008 and released after more than three years over charges of forming an armed gang.
Speaking to The Daily Star, Rahim voiced fear that the trial set to launch Friday would drag on:
“It will take a long time ... if a lawyer is absent in one court session then the session will be postponed.
“We proposed that each case be dealt with separately. Those who took part in the fighting separate from those who were only members [of Fatah al-Islam] or those who only possessed arms.”
Islamist inmates have gone on hunger strikes and riots, demanding that their trial procedures be accelerated. Last month, the Internal Security Forces negotiated a deal with the inmates to hand over nine suspects charged with killing a fellow prisoner.
Fatah al-Islam fought a deadly battle against the Lebanese Army in the summer of 2007 in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Bared which resulted in the apprehension of large numbers of Islamists.
