Lebanese police officers outside a detention center in Beirut, August 7, 2022 after a prisoner escape. (Credit: Anwar Amro/File photo/AFP)
The Lebanese Army intelligence services arrested a Syrian national on Tuesday after he escaped from the capital's courthouse detention center — known as Adlieh — on Aug. 7, the troop said in a statement issued Tuesday.
The man, A. H., on Monday, in Bourj el-Barajneh, a neighborhood in the southern suburbs of Beirut. He is suspected of drug trafficking, robbery and armed robbery of a bank in Zalka, in Mount Lebanon. A judicial investigation is ongoing.
More than 30 detainees escaped the detention center through a window in early August after smuggling a tool into Adlieh, security and judicial sources said.
According to a judicial source close to the investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity, "some of the detainees are Lebanese and others are foreigners, including Syrians and Palestinians."
In early November, the army also arrested a man in the southern suburbs of Beirut on suspicion of having escaped from the same detention center.
Other escapes have been reported in Lebanon in recent months. They come amidst an economic crisis that has pushed more than 80 percent of Lebanese below the poverty line and forced many members of the security forces to look for a second job to ensure sufficient income.