Trial Adjourned as One Abra Suspect Refuses to Go to Court, Another Plays Football

The military court adjourned on Tuesday the trial of suspects charged with terrorism and the killing of Lebanese soldiers near the southern city of Sidon last year after two of them, including a footballer, failed to attend the hearing.

The trial of the detainees and fugitives was adjourned to November 18. One of the suspects, a Roumieh prison inmate, refused to attend the session at the military court, the state-run National News Agency reported.

NNA said the other is a footballer who is in Jeddah to take part in the national team's friendly match with Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.

The suspects are charged with terrorist crimes, the killing of soldiers and sparking sectarian strife.

They are the supporters of Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir, who went into hiding following deadly gunbattles in Abra with the Lebanese army in June 2013.

Indictments were issued in February against him and 56 of his followers that called for the death penalty. Around 54 of them are in custody.

The 45-year-old cleric, who supports the overwhelmingly Sunni rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad, is still nowhere to be found along with pop idol Fadel Shaker.

Al-Asir teamed up with Shaker, a onetime prominent singer, when around three years ago he began agitating for Hizbullah to disarm.

The June 2013 gunbattles between the cleric's supporters and the army concentrated in the area of the Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque, where Asir was a preacher, and nearby buildings in Abra.

G.K.

H.K.