Lebanon Passes General Amnesty Law, Potentially Freeing 18-Soldier Clash Convicts
Updated
Updated · The Associated Press · Aug 12
Lebanon Passes General Amnesty Law, Potentially Freeing 18-Soldier Clash Convicts
3 articles · Updated · The Associated Press · Aug 12
Summary
Lebanon’s parliament approved a general amnesty law that will replace death sentences with long prison terms, reduce some life sentences and immediately free some detainees, a day after abolishing capital punishment.
The measure is meant to ease prison overcrowding and address alleged judicial overreach, but it excludes rape, trafficking, corruption, terror financing, premeditated murder, repeat drug offenses and collaboration with Israel.
Ahmad al-Assir’s case became the law’s flashpoint: the Sunni cleric was sentenced to death after 2013 clashes that killed 18 Lebanese soldiers, and a lawmaker said he could be released within 1½ to 2 years.
The bill exposed sectarian bargaining, with Sunni lawmakers pushing for Islamist prisoners, Shiites for drug offenders from Baalbek, and Christians for families who fled to Israel after the 2000 withdrawal.
Supporters called the vote a correction of past bias against Sunnis, while soldiers’ families, reformists and legal activists said broad amnesty without court reform repeats Lebanon’s postwar pattern of impunity.