Families of Lebanese Missing in Syria Call on Ibrahim to Intervene
The families of Lebanese nationals missing in Syria, which Syrian authorities refuse to recognize their presence in the regime's prisons, called on General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim to tackle the matter with the regime of the neighboring country.
According to a report published in An Nahar newspaper on Thursday the relatives demanded the release of the kins and the handing over of the bodies of those who were killed.
The families called on Ibrahim to intervene over his experience in resolving the cases of the political abductees.
The newspaper said that the families reject any attempts to politicize their cause or exploiting it.
The families rejected any negotiations, reiterating that they want the fate of their relatives to be revealed.
Ibrahim led negotiations in 2013 to free nine Lebanese pilgrims who were kidnapped in Syria and was involved in the release of a group of nuns abducted from the Syrian town of Maalula.
On Sunday, the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat revealed the fate of four Lebanese nationals missing in Syria out of 622 names.
The four men identified as Salim Salamah, Kozhaya Shehwan, Abdul Nasser al-Masri and Raef Faraj, were reportedly killed according to four official Syrian documents.
For over 20 years, more than 600 families -- Lebanese and Palestinian, Muslim and Christian -- have demanded authorities reveal the fate of thousands of political prisoners believed to have disappeared at the hands of Syrian troops who entered Lebanon shortly after the outbreak of the 1975-1990 civil war.
Successive Lebanese governments have made apparent attempts to address the issue, even including it in cabinet programs.
Rights groups say thousands of men, women and children disappeared at the hands of Hafez Assad, Bashar's predecessor and late father, during the civil war, a spiraling bloodbath which tore Lebanon apart on confessional lines.
Syria withdrew from its smaller neighbor in 2005 under massive international pressure over the assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri.
The Assad dynasty has long denied holding any prisoners of conscience, but on four different occasions between 1976 and 2000 has released Lebanese who had been held in Syrian prisons.
While Syria declared it no longer had any Lebanese detainees after the prisoner release in 2000, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem made a statement to the contrary during a fence-mending trip to Lebanon in 2008.
"Those who have waited more than 30 years since the start of the (Lebanese) civil war can wait another few weeks," Muallem said at the time.
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