Reporting by Faris Rifai
(Zaman Al Wasl)- Weeks before the eruption of the Syrian revolution the regime’s agents in Lebanon kidnapped four brothers and handed them to Syrian intelligence.
Al-Jasim four brothers, Jasim, Shbib, Ali and Haidar, who came from Jarablus northern of Syrian to work in Lebanon, started distributing flyers to encourage Syrians in Lebanon to arrange a sit-in at the Syrian Embassy in Lebanon, but the intelligence within the Lebanese Army knew about their activities and arrested three of them “except Jasim” who was arrested later from hid work place, according to Nabil al-Halabi, an activist and manager of the Lebanese Institute for Democracy and Human Rights (LIFE).
He detailed that after investigation, the investigation judge found no evidence to keep them in prison, and it released them. “but the story did not stop at that level, as the four brothers were abducted in front of the court on a 4-wheel-vehicle, and were taken to Syrian and handed to nearest station of the air-forces intelligence, where they were treated very badly”.
Al-Halabi revealed that the one who abducted the brothers was Salah al-Haj, son of Ali al-Haj, the former manager of interior forces and one of the accused people in assassinating the former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Harir, and he was responsible for the security in the Syrian Embassy in Lebanon.
The case of abduction the four brothers had been covered widely by media and had political effects especially after abducting Shibli al-Esami, the 86 years old, former deputy of the Syrian president, May 25, 2011. Subsequently, the Ambassador of Syrian regime in Lebanon Ali Abdul-Karim was put on the black list by the USA for practicing acts that did not fit with political norms.
After revealing details by the department of information in Lebanon about connection of the Syrian embassy with the abduction and finding the phone calls and timing of them, the Syrian intelligence with Hezbollah pressurised the four brothers’ family to withdraw the case from the Lebanese court.
After releasing the brother, they went to Northern of Syria and formed a battalion within the Free Syrian Army, but they found no support, then Jasim sought asylum in Germany and Ali in Sweden, while no information available about the other two brothers.
Al-Halabi explained that the file of “al-Jasim Brothers” is still open as a criminal case in Lebanon under accusation of abduction for al-Jasim brothers. He mentioned that he and the British Lawyer Toby Kidman are following up the file.
Al-Halabi added: “the file is very important and serious and we cannot go ahead with it in Lebanon because the country is controlled by the Iranians and Syrians, and opening the file again would reveal lots of information about countless cases f abduction took place Lebanon and abductees handed to Syrian government.”
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