Lebanon summons US envoy over Israel operative’s escape from country
Lebanon's foreign minister has summoned the US ambassador to Beirut over the escape of an Israeli operative from the country with the help of the American embassy despite a travel ban imposed on him.
Lebanon's Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti summoned US Ambassador Dorothy Shea On Friday, asking her to explain "the circumstances of Amer al-Fakhoury’s transfer abroad from the US embassy," AFP quoted Lebanon’s National News Agency as saying.
The development came after leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement slammed al-Fakhoury's departure from the country as an "escape" organized by the US and a "flagrant violation of (Lebanese) sovereignty."
In a televised speech earlier on Friday, Nasrallah condemned smuggling out of the Israeli operative, who was jailed in Lebanon on security charges.
Nasrallah said during the time that al-Fakhoury was in prison, the US continued for months to exert all forms of pressures on Lebanon and even threatened its authorities to secure al-Fakhoury’s release from prison.
“The US even threatened Lebanese judges, some of whom refused to release al-Fakhoury and some of whom finally yielded to the pressures,” the Hezbollah leader said, adding, “The US threatened to blacklist several Lebanese figures and to halt military support to Lebanese army in order to get al-Fakoury out of jail.”
A former member of the pro-Israeli South Lebanon Army (SLA), al-Fakhoury was also the former head of the infamous Khiam Prison, which was opened in 1984 by the SLA after Israel created a security zone in southern Lebanon.
Former prisoners have accused al-Fakhoury of ordering the torture of thousands of detainees in Khiam prison before Israel withdrew its forces from Lebanon in 2000, ending 22-year occupation of the southern part of the country.
A security source said on Thursday that al-Fakhoury left the country in a helicopter from the US embassy heading to an unknown destination, but the embassy did not comment on the report.
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