Military Court Jails Daftardar 7 Years, Fustoq 3 Years and Sabbagh 2 Years

Five Islamist militants were handed jail terms ranging from two to seven years on Monday over terror-related charges.

State-run National News Agency said the Military Court sentenced senior Abdullah Azzam Brigades official Jamal Daftardar to seven years in jail. The Qaida-linked militant was arrested in the western Bekaa region on January 15, 2014.

He had been charged with belonging to a terrorist group, plotting to carry out terrorist attacks across Lebanon and forging Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian identification papers.

The court also handed down a 3-year sentence to radical cleric Sheikh Omar Bakri Fustoq, who was arrested in Aley on May 25, 2014.

Fustoq had been charged with “belonging to armed terrorist groups; training militants on arms and explosives; seeking to create an Islamic emirate in the North; delivering religious sermons containing insults against the state and the army; and incitement to civil war.”

Bakri lived in Britain for almost 20 years before settling in Lebanon in 2005 after he was banned from London under government curbs following the underground and bus bombings that year.

The Syrian-born cleric, who also holds Lebanese nationality, had denied having any links to al-Qaida although he said he believed in "the same ideology."

Also on Monday, the Military Court sentenced prominent Tripoli gunman Hussam al-Sabbagh to two years in jail. His bodyguard Shadi Zaylaa received a similar verdict.

Sabbagh was arrested in Tripoli's Abi Samra neighborhood in July 2014.

Known as Abu Hassan, Sabbagh holds Lebanese and Australian citizenships and is wanted by authorities in both countries for belonging to al-Qaida, most notably the Fatah al-Islam group.

Influenced by al-Qaida's mentality during the United States' invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, he joined the group in fighting U.S. troops in the country.

He also sent members of al-Qaida through Lebanon and Syria to fight in Iraq against invading U.S. troops in 2003, according to MTV. In recent years, Sabbagh was heavily involved in the clashes between Tripoli's rival neighborhoods of Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen.

The Military Court also sentenced Mohammed Bassam Hammoud to five years in jail.

According to NNA, the five men were convicted of “belonging to an armed terrorist group with the aim of carrying out acts of terror as well as the possession of arms and explosives.”

Y.R.