Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported Thursday “gross negligence” and violations of due process in the investigations of four politically sensitive murders that reveal donations failed to strengthen the rule of law in Lebanon. This comes a year after the assassination of pro-democracy activist Lokman Slim.
The four murders were of Byblos Bank ethics department head Antoine Dagher (62) on June 4, 2020, retired anti-smuggling customs officer Colonel Mounir bou Rjeily (53) on December 2, 2020, amateur military photographer Joe Bejjani (36) on December 21, 2020 and Slim (58). The Information Branch of the Internal Security Forces, considered technically advantaged compared to local police, investigated all four.
HRW studied the available police files and footage on the cases and found a failure to cordon off the venue of Slim’s and Bejjani’s assassinations, leading to possible contamination of the crime scene by flocking crowds. Moreover, investigators surveyed the phones of some witnesses and electronic devices, including surveillance cameras, of the victims’ families without consent and wiped them before returning them. This is illegal under Lebanese law. Investigations were closed although no suspects were identified in the murders, all committed in residential areas.
HRW interviewed relatives of the victims, lawyers, legal experts and journalists. Those interviewed spoke of a lack of earnestness among investigators, including focusing on personal angles and dismissing possible political motives—or actors. These political motives possibly differ. While Slim routinely received threats, was wary of Hezbollah leaders and had even faced an angry crowd at his doorstep in December 2019 for his activism, Dagher’s family suspect his killing could be related to an important fraud case he worked on the previous month.
Meanwhile, HRW found that Bejjani had captured images of a hangar at the Beirut port which later turned out to have stored the ammonium nitrate responsible for the explosion in August 2020 that killed over 200 people. He had tried to amplify these photos after the blast, but tweeted that he was quitting military photography since he was made to “feel like a terrorist.” Colonel bou Rjeily also shared a connection to the explosion through his friend Colonel Joseph Skaf, who as early as 2014 was the first to raise concerns about the hazardous nature of the ammonium nitrate. Colonel Skaf died in 2017 after what was officially concluded to be a fall but was found by another medical report to be an attack.
HRW’s conclusions on the weakened rule of law in Lebanon has been echoed by organizations like Sherpa and the EU, which announced a sanctions framework for Lebanon in 2021.
The report calls on donors to reevaluate their support to the Internal Security Forces.
