Lebanese Young Man Dies in Guinea After Saving Two People From Drowning

Photo of Hussein Fsheikh, who died while saving two people from drowning in Guinea. (NNA)
Photo of Hussein Fsheikh, who died while saving two people from drowning in Guinea. (NNA)
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Lebanese Young Man Dies in Guinea After Saving Two People From Drowning

Photo of Hussein Fsheikh, who died while saving two people from drowning in Guinea. (NNA)
Photo of Hussein Fsheikh, who died while saving two people from drowning in Guinea. (NNA)

Hours after his disappearance, news emerged about the death of Lebanese teenager Hussein Fsheikh in Guinea, West Africa, where he emigrated two years ago.

Head of the Higher Relief Committee Maj. Gen. Mohammed Kheir announced that Guinean authorities officially informed him that the body of a teenager who drowned in the Konkouré River while trying to save two people from drowning belonged to Lebanese Hussein Fsheikh.

He died after rescuing an Egyptian woman and an African young man from drowning in a waterfall in the Conakry region of West Africa, where he was washed away by the river.

The young man was born in 1994 and had visited his family for the last time on Eid al-Fitr, in his hometown of Btormaz in Dinnieh, North Lebanon.

Kheir said under the directives of Prime Minister Saad Hariri, contacts were ongoing with authorities in Guinea to take the necessary measures to return the body to Lebanon as soon as possible.

In a Tweet, Hariri mourned the death of Fsheikh, saying: “Martyr Hussein al-Fsheikh, a Lebanese ambassador for chivalry, nobility, and courage, drowned in Conakry as he was rescuing two people from inevitable death.”

The premier expressed his sincerest condolences to the family of the deceased and to all people of Btormaz in Dinnieh.

Lebanon’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants expressed in a statement on Tuesday its “sincere condolences” to the family of the deceased and to the Lebanese Diaspora in Guinea.



Germany Hands Syrian Doctor Life for Torturing Assad Critics

Syrian doctor Alaa M., accused of crimes against humanity, arrives for his judgment in the security room of the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 16 June 2025. (EPA)
Syrian doctor Alaa M., accused of crimes against humanity, arrives for his judgment in the security room of the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 16 June 2025. (EPA)
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Germany Hands Syrian Doctor Life for Torturing Assad Critics

Syrian doctor Alaa M., accused of crimes against humanity, arrives for his judgment in the security room of the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 16 June 2025. (EPA)
Syrian doctor Alaa M., accused of crimes against humanity, arrives for his judgment in the security room of the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 16 June 2025. (EPA)

A Syrian doctor who had practiced in Germany was sentenced to life in prison by a German court on Monday for crimes against humanity and war crimes after he was found guilty of torturing dissidents in Syria.

The 40-year-old, identified only as Alaa M. in accordance with German privacy laws, was found guilty of killing two people and torturing another eight during his time working in Syria as a doctor at a military hospital and detention center in Homs in 2011 and 2012.

The court said his crimes were part of a systematic attack against people protesting against then-President Bashar al-Assad that precipitated the country's civil war.

Assad was toppled in December. His government denied it tortured prisoners.

Alaa M. arrived in Germany in 2015, after fleeing to Germany among a large influx of Syrian refugees, and became one of roughly 10,000 Syrian medics who helped ease acute staff shortages in the country's healthcare system.

He was arrested in June 2020, and was handed a life sentence without parole, the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt said in a statement.

The defendant had pleaded not guilty, saying he was the target of a conspiracy.

German prosecutors have used universal jurisdiction laws that allow them to seek trials for suspects in crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world.

They have targeted several former Syrian officials in similar cases in recent years.

The plaintiffs were supported by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights.

ECCHR lawyer Patrick Kroker called Monday's ruling "a further step towards a comprehensive reckoning with Assad's crimes".

Judges found that the doctor caused "considerable physical suffering" as a result of the torture inflicted on his victims, which included serious beatings, mistreating wounds and inflicting serious injury to the genitals of two prisoners, one of whom was a teenage boy.

Two patients died after he gave them lethal medication, the court statement said.

Monday's ruling can be appealed.