Saida city in southern Lebanon. (Credit: National News Agency)
President Joseph Aoun said on the 26th anniversary of the assassination of the four judges in Saida that "the blood of these martyrs will not be shed in vain, and we will continue to seek the truth and hold the criminals accountable, no matter how long it takes," the state-run National News Agency reported Sunday.
"Nothing can intimidate the judiciary or deter it from fulfilling its noble mission," Aoun said.
The assassination of four judges in Saida on June 8, 1999, remains a significant event in the country's judicial history. The judges — Hassan Othman, Walid Harmoush, Assem Bou Daher and Imad Shehab — were killed during a courtroom session at the South Lebanon Criminal Court in the old Justice Palace. The assailants opened fire through the rear window of the courtroom, resulting in their deaths and injuries to five others.
The motive behind the killings has been a subject of speculation. At the time of the assassination, the judges were presiding over the trial of two Iraqis and a Palestinian.
Aoun affirmed that the heinous crime which targeted the four judges in the Saida court 26 years ago “remains a deep wound in the conscience of the nation and at the heart of Lebanese justice.”
He said, “The honorable judges Hassan Othman, Imad Shehab, Assem Bou Daher and Walid Harmoush, who fell as martyrs on this day in 1999 while carrying out their sacred duty at the Criminal Court in the Saida Justice Palace, gave their lives in defense of the independence of the judiciary and the dignity of justice in Lebanon.”
In 2019, the Lebanese Judicial Council convicted Ahmed Abdulkarim (also known as Abu Mehjen) and five accomplices in absentia for their involvement in the killings. Abu Mehjen was sentenced to death, while the others received similar sentences for harboring fugitives in the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp. Another individual, Wissam Hussein Tuhaibesh, was acquitted due to insufficient evidence.