The criminal photographed from behind by the ISF. (Credit: Photo taken from the Facebook page of the Internal Security Forces)
Nearly two months after the horrific crime in which a 21-year-old woman (H.A.) was scalded by her husband A.M., the latter was arrested Thursday after fleeing with the help of his father.
The young woman died in the intensive care unit at Saint George Hospital in Hadath, as a result of severe burns from boiling oil that her husband inflicted on her at their home in Ouzai, in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
On the instructions of Mount Lebanon Attorney General Sami Sader, A.M. was apprehended by the Baabda judicial police after several weeks on the run, a judicial source close to the case told L'Orient-Le Jour.
On Friday, the Internal Security Forces announced in a statement on their X account "the arrest of A.M. (Lebanese, born in 1996), suspected of having tortured and caused the death of his wife H.A. by burning her with boiling oil."
According to the security forces, the procedure followed a complaint filed on October 8, 2025, by the victim's mother at the Hadath gendarmerie. "The man, already known for drug and violence related offenses, had tried to hide for nearly a month by living in a tent in Saida, before finally being apprehended in Ouzai," the statement said.
According to the investigation and testimonies from the 10 and 11-year-old children the man had from a previous marriage, A.M. "regularly and systematically inflicted violence on his wife and previous partners," the ISF said.
"He used various instruments of torture, including electric wires, sticks, and hot objects, and forced the children to witness these acts," the statement added.
Examination of the scene and evidence confirmed that the suspect's claim that his wife had been burned while cooking was false.
The alleged perpetrator told police that "the violence started after marital arguments related to phone calls between the victim and her ex-husband."
After the crime, the suspect reportedly left his wife at home for two days before taking her to the hospital and then fleeing, the statement said.
Authorities have taken custody of the couple's two minor children and seized the suspect's mobile phones for the investigation. Legal procedures have been initiated in accordance with the judge's instructions.
In a video given to media outlet thisislebnews and broadcast on Oct. 27, after his wife's death, A.M. denied all the facts. He claimed that he and his wife "loved each other, that there were no problems between them and accused his detractors of lying."
He said that in his absence "two men knocked on the door, assaulted his wife, and left her in that state for reasons related to money." '
According to his account, he arrived after the fact and tried to take her to the hospital, claiming that no establishment would admit her without payment in advance, until her admission at Saint George Hospital.
Contacted by our publication, Nahila Salameh, journalist and feminist activist, condemned a "pattern of torture inflicted on the victim over time."
"He kept his children from his first marriage, and it was his second wife, only 21 years old, who was forced to raise them. These are the same children he forced to witness the abuse," she recounted, describing a case "of prolonged domestic violence and continuous suffering, committed not only against his wife, but also against the children, who are now victims of psychological trauma."
"His family was involved: his father helped him escape. No one was able to save her. It was a series of violent acts and collective complicity," she added.
Beyond the crime, the activist denounces the system. "The absence of effective reporting mechanisms, the complicity or silence of the community, the lack of protection for survivors, the absence of state-provided shelters, even though the domestic violence protection law stipulates that after a report, protection must be provided... all this shows the country's structural failings," Salameh said. She lamented that when women file complaints and report being victims of violence, they are often sent back to their abuser. They then find themselves under enormous pressure, marked by fear of their tormentor.
"In cases of domestic violence, we are faced with structural violence: in the law, in society, and in the way people are raised," she noted.
