Ragheb Alameh interrogated for clip allegedly insulting Nasrallah

BEIRUT — Singer Ragheb Alameh was interrogated at the Court of Cassation on Wednesday regarding a complaint filed against him after a recording surfaced of him allegedly insulting assassinated Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in a phone call.

Alameh claimed that the complaint had been dropped after it was found that the clip, which dates back to December 2024, had been fabricated, following his questioning by Judge Mirna Kallas of the Public Prosecution Office at the Court of Cassation, in Beirut's Palace of Justice.

In December, around a month after the cease-fire agreement that ended over 13 months of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, a video circulated on social media, featuring a voice allegedly belonging to Alameh in a phone call with Emirati artist Abdullah Bilkhair. In the recording, the voice reportedly insults Nasrallah and states: "There is no more Nasrallah, we are rid of him ... You can now come to Beirut."

Immediately after the video surfaced, Alameh denied its authenticity, claiming that the call was fake and that the voice was likely generated using artificial intelligence (AI). However, L’Orient Today verified the video at the time and found no indications that it had been AI-generated, suggesting instead that it appeared to be authentic.

The singer told L'Orient Today on Wednesday that the lawyers who initially filed the complaint against him withdrew it following the interrogation, as they were "convinced that the clip was fabricated."

He also told local television channel Al Jadeed earlier Wednesday that the "matter is over and the truth has been revealed to everyone." Moreover, he stressed that he “respects the blood of the martyrs and the blood of the former secretary-general of Hezbollah, the martyr Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.” 

Nasrallah was assassinated in a massive Israeli bombardment of Beirut's southern suburbs on Sept. 27, 2024. The attack involved dozens of 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs, decimated at least four residential buildings, and killed an unknown number of civilians.