Lebanese authorities have detained a former senior Syrian military officer who commanded the army’s 17th Division on crimes that he committed under ousted President Bashar Assad.
The charges include “murder, acts of torture, and crimes against humanity.”
The arrest of Maj. Gen. Adel Issa has both political and security dimensions amid growing judicial and security coordination between Beirut and Damascus, and the efforts of Syria’s new authorities to pursue former officials accused of committing crimes against Syrians.
This marks the first time Lebanon has arrested a former Syrian officer among dozens of military and security officers accused of crimes committed under the rule of the former regime.
Issa went to the Syrian embassy in Beirut on Friday for some paperwork. Embassy officials contacted Lebanon’s prosecutor’s office to tell them that Issa is wanted in Syria.
The Lebanese Public Prosecutor’s Office dispatched a team from the Central Criminal Investigation Department and arrested Issa and transferred him to the Beirut Palace of Justice detention center, a judicial source said.
The source told Asharq Al-Awsat that Lebanese judicial authorities will wait for Syrian authorities to send his charge sheet on Monday, and Beirut might hand him over to Damascus on the crimes that he committed.
The family of the detained former officer appealed to human rights organizations and associations to exert pressure for his release.
In a statement, it said that Issa “is an officer who was retired six years before the fall of the former Syrian regime.”
It said he “left Syria after his home was raided by an armed group whose affiliation was unknown.”
The family added that Issa “entered the Syrian embassy (on Friday) to arrange a legal power of attorney. After he went inside, a man approached his driver and asked for Issa’s phone, saying that he needed it inside the embassy.”
It noted that the driver “waited for him for hours, even after official working hours had ended. When he inquired about him, he was told that Issa had already left the embassy premises.”
According to the judicial source, Issa told his interrogators in Beirut that he crossed to Lebanon illegally after Assad’s fall but denied all accusations.
