The singer and former Salafist Fadl Chaker at a political rally in Beirut, in 2012. (Credit: AFP)
The Beirut Criminal Court, presided over by Bilal Dennaoui and composed of Nadim Nashef and Sara Breish, acquitted singer Fadl Shaker and Salafist Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir on Wednesday in a case involving the “attempted murder” of a Hezbollah official.
The court had concluded proceedings on Friday in a case related to a complaint filed for attempted murder in May 2013 in Saida (south Lebanon) by Hilal Hammoud, a leader of the Resistance Brigades (Hezbollah). The complaint also targeted four other defendants: Bilal Halabi (driver for Fadl Shaker’s wife), Hadi Qawas, Abdel Nasser Hneineh, and Fadi Beyrouthi, all of whom appeared before the judges except Beyrouthi, who remains on the run.
On Wednesday morning, the court ordered the release of Shaker and al-Assir, “unless they are being held in connection with another case.” It also sentenced Fadi Beyrouthi, Bilal Halabi, and Hadi Qawas to time already served and ordered them to surrender their weapons. Abdel Nasser Hneineh was also acquitted.
Singer-turned-Islamist Fadl Shaker had been sentenced in absentia in 2020 to 22 years in prison for supporting and financing Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir’s group, a key actor in clashes with the Lebanese army in Abra (Saida) in 2013 that left 29 dead, including 18 soldiers. He had since been hiding in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh in southern Lebanon before turning himself in to the Lebanese authorities on Oct. 5 last year.
