Deaths in Lebanese prisons have nearly doubled in 2022 compared to 2018, Amnesty International said in a statement, citing possible factors such as prison officials’ misconduct or negligence, overcrowding, lack of adequate resources and impunity for ill-treatment.

"The sharp increase in custodial deaths must be a wake-up call to the Lebanese government that their prisons need urgent and drastic reform," Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa Aya Majzoub said.

The Foreign Ministry said Thursday it is recalling the Lebanese ambassador to France, Rami Adwan, after an investigation was opened into allegations of rape and intentional violence by the envoy.

"Following the circumstances surrounding the case of the Lebanese ambassador to France... it has been decided to recall ambassador Rami Adwan," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

A Swiss delegation will visit Lebanon as part of investigations into Central Bank chief Riad Salameh, a judicial official said Thursday, as European legal pressure mounts on the top banker.

Switzerland was the first European country to open an investigation into Salameh, who is the subject of a series of judicial probes at home and abroad into the fortune he has amassed during some three decades in the job.

Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc said Thursday that its MPs will attend the presidential election session on June 14 and will vote for Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri had also affirmed that his bloc will vote for Franjieh.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to name a special envoy for Lebanon “reflects the French leader’s positive response to the urgent demands by the Vatican, Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi and several Lebanese forces as to changing the nature of the French team tasked with Lebanon’s presidential file,” a prominent Lebanese opposition leader said.

The decision “practically stands for ending the services of presidential adviser Patrick Durel, who is considered to be the godfather of the settlement calling for electing (Suleiman) Franjieh as president in return for naming Nawaf Salam as premier,” the leader added, in remarks to al-Akhbar newspaper.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said he does not rule out that the 12th presidential election session might be “worse” than the previous sessions through blocking the first round’s quorum or boycotting the session altogether.

“The circumstances are appropriate, there is no need for boycott and we’re before two candidates with clear characteristics who enjoy the needed conditions and the support of some blocs. That’s why it is necessary to head to open-ended electoral sessions until the aspired result is reached,” Geagea said in an interview.

France has no presidential candidate for Lebanon, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told her Lebanese counterpart Abdallah Bou Habib Thursday in a meeting in Riyadh.

"All what France cares about is for a president to be elected," Colonna told Bou Habib.

French President Emmanuel Macron has named his former foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian as his personal envoy for Lebanon, in a new bid to end the country's political crisis, the presidency said.

Le Drian will be charged with helping to find a "consensual and efficient" solution to the crisis, said a presidential official, asking not to be named.

Ex-president Michel Aoun has lashed out at some newspapers, especially Annahar and Nidaa al-Watan, accusing them of publishing “lies” about his meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Tuesday.

In a statement, Aoun’s press office said the former president “did not request a mediation or support for the position of the Free Patriotic Movement leader.”

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has stressed that his political camp will vote for Suleiman Franjieh in the upcoming presidential election session.

“We will vote for Suleiman Franjieh. We will all vote for him – we and our allies. None of us has said that he will cast a blank vote. We cast blank votes before our nomination of Franjieh and had they accepted the dialogue that I had called for twice we would not have reached the current phase,” Berri said in an interview published in al-Akhbar newspaper.