Fatal helicopter crash, assault targets LGBTQ+ community, report slams prison conditions: Everything you need to know to start your Thursday

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Two army personnel were killed and another injured after a military helicopter crashed in Hammana, Mount Lebanon, during a training flight yesterday evening. No further information on the incident has been given. Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati “offered his condolences for the two martyred officers and wished a speedy recovery to the wounded soldier,” his press office said in a statement, noting that he spoke with army commander Gen. Joseph Aoun to gather more details about the fatal crash.

Unidentified assailants, reportedly affiliated with extremist Christian group Jnoud al-Rab (“Soldiers of God”), “attacked [an LGBTQ+-friendly bar in Beirut’s Mar Mikhael neighborhood] and refused to let people out,” Helem LGBTQ+ rights organization executive director Tarek Zeidan told L’Orient Today. “Several people who tried to escape were physically attacked, and we are documenting those injuries as we speak,” Zeidan added. L’Orient Today could not verify the identity of the attackers or reports of injuries. An employee at Om Bar, where the incident began around 11 p.m., told L’Orient Today the venue was hosting a drag event last night and said there had been no injuries. A purported video of the incident shows what appears to be one of the assailants saying, “We have warned you 100 times … this is only the beginning.” A L'Orient Today reporter who arrived on the scene at midnight found two police cars that had responded to the incident present, alongside a number of shaken patrons, passersby and bar staff. Jnoud al-Rab has been repeatedly linked to incidents targeting the LGBTQ+ community in Lebanon. Yesterday’s assault comes after a rise in anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric among Lebanese officials. These include fierce criticism of legal amendments to protect LGBTQ+ community members from prosecution and new law proposals that could triple prison time for individuals convicted of “the promotion of sexual perversion,” an allusion to LGBTQ+ relationships.

Some 86 percent of incarcerated people in Lebanon have yet to be tried, while the country’s two dozen prisons are at nearly double their intake capacity and struggling with poor food and medical supplies, a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report claimed. The Internal Security Forces (ISF), cited in the report, estimated that only 1,094 of the 8,502 people detained in Lebanon — well over the country’s total prison capacity of 4,760 — have been tried. Roumieh, Lebanon’s largest penitentiary, imprisons more than triple its capacity, the head of the Beirut Bar Association says in the report. A police officer anonymously quoted by HRW attributed the overcrowding to an increase in crime, slow trial proceedings and the inability of many prisoners who have served their sentences to pay the fees required for their release.

The Lebanese Army yesterday claimed to have stopped around 700 people from informally crossing the border from Syria to Lebanon over the past week. Recent weeks have seen security forces repeatedly announce the dismantlement of people smuggling networks arranging such crossings, for which hundreds of migrants have been arrested. Security forces claimed that the migrants sought to attempt irregular sea crossings towards Europe from Lebanese shores. Spanish police earlier this month announced the arrest of 19 people who allegedly organized a multimillion-dollar land, sea and air migration operation for Syrian nationals departing from Lebanon. The Lebanese government has installed increasingly aggressive policing measures targeting Syrian refugee communities, including barring them from refugee status if they cross the border back to Syria.

Progressive Socialist Party-affiliated MP Wael Abu Faour called on the government to take action against the smuggling of banned pesticides into Lebanon, which can “various illnesses.” Abu Faour claimed “organized networks” coordinated routes “to and from Syria” through which the pesticides are smuggled and disseminated to farmers across Lebanon, who either use them out of “ignorance [of their potential toxicity]” or “as [cheaper] alternatives.” The pesticides are also smuggled in through the “port of Beirut, disguised as cleaning materials to be packaged in Lebanon and sold to farmers,” Bou Faour added. Last year, a report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization claimed that Lebanese farmers overuse pesticides. In February, Qatar announced it would resume importing leafy vegetables from Lebanon, lifting a ban from 2021 linked to “high levels of pesticides and E. coli.”

A day after being appointed by top prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat, Beirut Court of Appeal Public Prosecutor Ziad Abi Haidar yesterday asked to be recused from an investigation into Banque du Liban (BDL) spurred by Alvarez & Marsal (A&M)’s forensic audit findings, a senior judicial source told L’Orient Today. The same source claimed it will “take around a week” for a chamber of the Court of Appeal to accept Abi Haidar’s request and for the court’s president to potentially appoint his replacement. In June 2022, Abi Haidar withdrew from the investigation involving former BDL governor Riad Salameh. On Tuesday evening, Oueidat called on the Financial Prosecutor’s Office and the BDL Special Investigation Commission, alongside the Court of Appeal and other legal bodies, to launch investigations based on the A&M report. The forensic audit report purported to show seemingly lavish spending by BDL while also, according to Reuters, allegedly showing an attempt by the central bank to hide billions of dollars in losses.

In case you missed it, here’s our must-read story from yesterday: “What options do depositors still have to recover their dollars?”

Compiled by Abbas Mahfouz