Report by Maroun Nassif, English adaptation by Nadine Sassine
2535 is the number of Syrian prisoners in Lebanon.
The official decision was made to hand them over to their home country authorities to complete their sentences there.
To facilitate this mechanism, a political, security, and judicial meeting was held, chaired by Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati.
According to information made available to LBCI, the first item on the discussion table was the treaty of coordination and cooperation signed between Syria and Lebanon, allowing Lebanon to hand over prisoners to Syrian authorities under two conditions:
- If the prisoner is sentenced by a valid court decision
- Prisoners must personally agree to be handed over to their country
If they are not sentenced by a valid decision, the Syrian state must demand their extradition for Lebanon to be able to hand them over.
Here, the public prosecutor, Judge Jamal al-Hajjar, proposed a legal study on how to amend this treaty to facilitate the conditions for their extradition by Lebanon.
The extradition of Syrian prisoners to Syrian authorities is one of the measures aimed at reducing the number of displaced persons in Lebanon.
Therefore, it was decided to deport Syrians who entered Lebanon illegally, and to tighten measures against displaced persons on two levels: Security-wise, through military and security apparatuses, and municipally, by closing down illegal stores established by violating Syrians.
Secondly, and more importantly, General Security Chief General Bayssari stressed the need for the judiciary to be strict with detainees involved in smuggling crimes at the borders, and to include them among human traffickers, not just commodity smugglers, to change their offense from a misdemeanor to a felony and prevent their release after only 15 days.
Outside the context of these measures, Caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib made a dangerous statement revealing that every time the country apprehends violating Syrians, calls are received from authorities to release them.
In conclusion, sources from the General Security informed LBCI that General Bayssari will request a meeting with Syrian authorities next week, and parallel meetings will be held under the supervision of Mikati with the UNHCR to demand full details of refugee data, particularly their registration dates and the Syrian areas they fled from.
This aims at enabling General Security to identify lists of those who should be deported.
If the UNHCR does not cooperate this time, General Security will make unilateral deportation decisions, to be covered by the Cabinet with official decisions issued by it.
Finally, the sources conclude, even registered refugees with the UNHCR may be deported.