Lebanese drug baron, Nouh Zeater. (Credit: NNA)
A giant man steps up to the stand, surrounded by five soldiers. He suddenly seems small. He no longer bears the confident face seen in the few old photographs that exist of him. Pale, almost ashen, he looks as though his body might tip backward at any moment.He asks for a chair in a low voice. “I haven’t eaten for 20 days,” he says, by way of explanation.Yet on this Tuesday morning in the military court, the legend endures. Even visibly emaciated by his hunger strike in his cell, Nouh Zeaiter, 48, something of a Lebanese version of a Corsican godfather, still commands attention. How we got here Army raids Nouh Zeaiter's home in Baalbeck, seizes equipment, makes arrests Impeccably dressed, sporting a carefully groomed beard and long, salt-and-pepper hair tied in a ponytail, he speaks before being spoken to, interrupts questions and...
A giant man steps up to the stand, surrounded by five soldiers. He suddenly seems small. He no longer bears the confident face seen in the few old photographs that exist of him. Pale, almost ashen, he looks as though his body might tip backward at any moment.He asks for a chair in a low voice. “I haven’t eaten for 20 days,” he says, by way of explanation.Yet on this Tuesday morning in the military court, the legend endures. Even visibly emaciated by his hunger strike in his cell, Nouh Zeaiter, 48, something of a Lebanese version of a Corsican godfather, still commands attention. How we got here Army raids Nouh Zeaiter's home in Baalbeck, seizes equipment, makes arrests Impeccably dressed, sporting a carefully groomed beard and long, salt-and-pepper hair tied in a ponytail, he speaks before being spoken to, interrupts questions...