BEIRUT, Oct 5 — Lebanese singer-turned-fugitive militant Fadl Shaker surrendered to authorities yesterday after spending more than a decade in hiding inside a Palestinian refugee camp, a Lebanese judicial official said.
BEIRUT, Oct 5 — Lebanese singer-turned-fugitive militant Fadl Shaker surrendered to authorities yesterday after spending more than a decade in hiding inside a Palestinian refugee camp, a Lebanese judicial official said.
Shaker, who rose to fame as a popular crooner and is of Lebanese-Palestinian descent, was accused of taking part in the 2013 clashes in Sidon between followers of Salafist cleric Ahmad al-Assir and the Lebanese army, which left 17 soldiers dead.
Although Shaker was known to support Assir, he denied any role in the fighting and had been hiding in Ain al-Hilweh, Lebanon’s largest Palestinian refugee camp, where national authorities lack jurisdiction.
Assir was sentenced to death in 2017, later reduced to 20 years of hard labour in 2021. In 2020, a Lebanese military tribunal handed Shaker a 22-year prison sentence for providing financial and logistical aid to Assir’s group, labelled as “terrorist.”
“Fadl Shaker surrendered to the Lebanese army at the entrance of Ain al-Hilweh camp as part of efforts to resolve his legal case,” a judicial source told AFP.
By longstanding practice, the Lebanese army does not enter Palestinian camps, leaving internal security to Palestinian factions.
A source close to Shaker said he “believes in his innocence and trusts that the Lebanese judiciary will deliver justice this time.”
While in hiding, Shaker released a song in July that topped music charts across the Arab world. The accompanying video, filmed inside Ain al-Hilweh, has garnered over 113 million views on YouTube. — AFP
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