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Lebanon Launches Probe after Ambassador in France Accused of Rape, Violence

Lebanese Ambassador to France Rami Adwan and French President Emmanuel Macron. Reuters file photo
Lebanese Ambassador to France Rami Adwan and French President Emmanuel Macron. Reuters file photo
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Lebanon Launches Probe after Ambassador in France Accused of Rape, Violence

Lebanese Ambassador to France Rami Adwan and French President Emmanuel Macron. Reuters file photo
Lebanese Ambassador to France Rami Adwan and French President Emmanuel Macron. Reuters file photo

The Lebanese Foreign Minister has said it will investigate reports of rape and intentional violence by its Ambassador to France Rami Adwan.

The Ministry said on Twitter on Saturday that it will send a committee to Paris to question the diplomat and embassy staff about the complaints.

Adwan has already been investigated following complaints by two former embassy employees, informed sources said, confirming an earlier media report.

Due to his position, Adwan enjoys diplomatic immunity from prosecution, but the French government urged the Lebanese authorities to lift this and allow him to go on trial.

"In view of the seriousness of the facts mentioned, we consider it necessary for the Lebanese authorities to lift the immunity of the Lebanese ambassador in Paris in order to facilitate the work of the French judicial authorities", the French foreign ministry told AFP late Friday.

The first woman, aged 31, filed her complaint in June 2022 for a rape she says was committed in May 2020 in the ambassador's private apartment, according to sources close to the investigation.

According to her deposition seen by AFP, she made clear her lack of interest in having sex and that she screamed and burst into tears.

The woman, who was working as an editor, had already reported to police in 2020 that Adwan, in his post since 2017, had struck her during an argument in his office.

She said she had not filed a complaint because she did not want to "break the life" of the ambassador.

According to the complaint, she had a relationship with the ambassador, who carried out "psychological and physical violence with daily humiliations".

The second woman, aged 28, made a complaint last February after what she said was a series of physical attacks after she turned down sexual relations.

She claims Adwan tried to hit her with his car after an argument on the sidelines of last year's Normandy World Peace Forum.

She also accused the ambassador of trying to suffocate her at her home last December by pressing her face to her bed.

"My client contests all accusations of aggression in any shape or form: verbal, moral, sexual," Adwan's lawyer Karim Beylouni told AFP.

"Between 2018 and 2022 he had with these two women romantic relationships punctuated by arguments and breakups," Beylouni said.

An informed source said the Paris judicial police had closed the case.

Asked by AFP to comment, the Paris prosecutor's office said it was not immediately in a position to do so.

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Arab World

Separated for Decades, Assad's Fall Spurs Hope for Families Split by Golan Heights Buffer Zone

Soja Safadi, center, with her sisters, tries to see their other sister, Sawsan, who is inside the buffer zone near the "Alpha Line" that separates the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from Syria, in the town of Majdal Shams, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Soja Safadi, center, with her sisters, tries to see their other sister, Sawsan, who is inside the buffer zone near the "Alpha Line" that separates the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from Syria, in the town of Majdal Shams, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
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Separated for Decades, Assad's Fall Spurs Hope for Families Split by Golan Heights Buffer Zone

Soja Safadi, center, with her sisters, tries to see their other sister, Sawsan, who is inside the buffer zone near the "Alpha Line" that separates the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from Syria, in the town of Majdal Shams, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)
Soja Safadi, center, with her sisters, tries to see their other sister, Sawsan, who is inside the buffer zone near the "Alpha Line" that separates the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights from Syria, in the town of Majdal Shams, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Matias Delacroix)

The four sisters gathered by the side of the road, craning their necks to peer far beyond the razor wire-reinforced fence snaking across the mountain. One took off her jacket and waved it slowly above her head.
In the distance, a tiny white speck waved frantically from the hillside.
“We can see you!” Soha Safadi exclaimed excitedly on her cellphone. She paused briefly to wipe away tears that had begun to flow. “Can you see us too?”
The tiny speck on the hill was Soha’s sister, Sawsan. Separated by war and occupation, they hadn’t seen each other in person for 22 years, The Associated Press said.
The six Safadi sisters belong to the Druze community, one of the Middle East’s most insular religious minorities. Its population is spread across Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Golan Heights, a rocky plateau that Israel seized from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981. The US is the only country to recognize Israel's control; the rest of the world considers the Golan Heights occupied Syrian territory.
Israel's seizure of the Golan Heights split families apart.
Five of the six Safadi sisters and their parents live in Majdal Shams, a Druze town next to the buffer zone created between the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights and Syria. But the sixth, 49-year-old Sawsan, married a man from Jaramana, a town on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, 27 years ago and has lived in Syria ever since. They have land in the buffer zone, where they grow olives and apples and also maintain a small house.
With very few visits allowed to relatives over the years, a nearby hill was dubbed “Shouting Hill,” where families would gather on either side of the fence and use loudspeakers to speak to each other.
The practice declined as the internet made video calls widely accessible, while the Syrian war that began in 2011 made it difficult for those on the Syrian side to reach the buffer zone.
But since the Dec. 8 fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, families like the Safadis, are starting to revive the practice. They cling to hope, however faint, that regime change will herald a loosening of restrictions between the Israeli-controlled area and Syria that have kept them from their loved ones for so long.
“It was something a bit different. You see her in person. It feels like you could be there in two minutes by car,” Soha Safadi, 51, said Wednesday after seeing the speck that was her sister on the hill. “This is much better, much better.”
Since Assad’s fall, the sisters have been coming to the fence every day to see Sawsan. They make arrangements by phone for a specific time, and then make a video call while also trying to catch a glimpse of each other across the hill.
“She was very tiny, but I could see her,” Soha Safadi said. “There were a lot of mixed feelings — sadness, joy and hope. And God willing, God willing, soon, soon, we will see her” in person.
After Assad fell, the Israeli military pushed through the buffer zone and into Syria proper. It has captured Mount Hermon, Syria’s tallest mountain, known as Jabal al Sheikh in Arabic, on the slopes of which lies Majdal Shams. The buffer zone is now a hive of military and construction activity, and Sawsan can’t come close to the fence.
While it is far too early to say whether years of hostile relations between the two countries will improve, the changes in Syria have sparked hope for divided families that maybe, just maybe, they might be able to meet again.
“This thing gave us a hope ... that we can see each other. That all the people in the same situation can meet their families,” said another sister, 53-year-old Amira Safadi.
Yet seeing Sawsan across the hill, just a short walk away, is also incredibly painful for the sisters.
They wept as they waved, and cried even more when their sister put their nephew, 24-year-old Karam, on the phone. They have only met him once, during a family reunion in Jordan. He was 2 years old.
“It hurts, it hurts, it hurts in the heart,” Amira Safadi said. “It’s so close and far at the same time. It is like she is here and we cannot reach her, we cannot hug her.”