The photo of Pascal Sleiman put up during his funeral in Mayfouk, April 12, 2024. (Credit: Matthieu Karam/L'Orient Today)
BEIRUT — The Lebanese Army announced on Saturday that Syria handed over one of the main suspects in the killing of Lebanese Forces (LF) official Pascal Sleiman.
Sleiman was kidnapped on April 7, 2024 in Kharbeh by armed individuals during the alleged theft of his car. His body was found in Syria the following day, and Syrian suspects were subsequently arrested in Lebanon. The announcement of Sleiman's disappearance initially raised fears of tensions between the LF and its political opponents, primarily Hezbollah, against the backdrop of other obscure cases involving LF officials, notably the death of a party executive in Ain Ebel, southern Lebanon. The LF directly blamed Hezbollah, which denied any involvement. Then, information leaked from the investigation, concerning the involvement of a Syrian gang, provoked attacks on Syrian refugees and migrants and the LF adopting an even firmer stance concerning their presence and the need to repatriate them to Syria.
"After a series of contacts conducted by the Army Cooperation and Coordination Office with the Syrian authorities, the office received A.N., one of the main participants in the crime of kidnapping and killing citizen Pascal Sleiman on April 7, 2024. The detainee was handed over to the Army Intelligence Directorate in parallel with the [army's] security follow-up on the crime. The detainee is the leader of a kidnapping, theft and forgery gang and has a large number of arrest warrants against him. An investigation has been initiated under the supervision of the competent judiciary," the army statement said.
On May 14, 2024, the first investigating judge in Mount Lebanon, Nicolas Mansour, issued arrest warrants for two suspects who had been detained and interrogated. Five arrest warrants in absentia had also been issued for other people who had fled to Syria.
Commenting on the handover of the gang leader, Lebanese Forces spokesperson Charles Jabbour told L'Orient Today that this was a big development as the motives behind the kidnapping and assassination could now be revealed.
"We have to wait to see what will come out of the investigations with him," he added.
The Sleiman affair took place while Bashar al-Assad was still in power, but the latter was overthrown on Dec. 8, 2024 by a coalition of rebel groups, led by the now-dissolved Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham and the group's leader Ahmad al-Sharaa, who has since become Syria's president. Since Sharaa came to power, Lebanon has been coordinating with Syrian authorities on various issues, including security along the border between the two countries.
In August 2024, Samir Geagea denounced the Assad regime's “refusal” to hand over suspects in the Sleiman affair. The names of two people allegedly involved in the murder, including that of the alleged leader of the gang, were mentioned by Geagea, but they did not match the initials of the man handed over by Damascus to the Lebanese army on Saturday.