The Samaha Verdict: Where is Justice?

The leaked footage from the meeting between Former Minister Michel Samaha and Milad Kfoury doesn’t need much explanation or elaboration as it is sufficiently clear and the guilt is seen firsthand and cannot be contested.

Samaha confessed to moving explosives from Syria into Lebanon so as to target illegal crossings, as the latter explains, and execute a series of bombings and assassinations against Lebanese political figures and Syrian gunmen at the Lebanese-Syrian borders.

Samaha said on multiple occasions that he was driven by Kfoury to perform said acts. Samaha, by law, willingly engaged in unlawful acts and footage of him addressing the crime was published by MTV Website.

A man accused of such a political crime must be handed the death penalty. Now how can we perceive Samaha as “driven by a second party” when he was the “doer”? How can we be sure that his crime hadn’t been committed several times in the past when there is no clear record and the culprit has clearly shows willingness to engage in such a crime?

Anyhow, isn’t Samaha’s crime an act of terrorism that aims to spread tension and panic? This plot of his, involving the transportation of dangerous explosives, could have been executed anywhere and anytime. It could have killed hundreds, even thousands under the flag of martyrdom if Samaha hadn’t been detained.

This four-and-a-half-year sentence is nothing if not an aggression against lawful rights. Samaha has been exempted from the rightful rule of justice.

Adapted from an article originally written in Arabic by Christelle Mahfouz