Geagea: Hayek Assassination a Stab in the Heart of Lebanese State

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Sunday described the killing of former Khiyam Prison warden Antoine al-Hayek as “a stab in the heart of the Lebanese state before anything else.”

“The assassination of the citizen Antoine al-Hayek is a stab in the heart of the Lebanese state before anything else, as if someone is saying that they don’t believe in this state nor in its institutions, judiciary and security agencies,” Geagea said in a statement.

“It is totally unacceptable for a party, which is organized as the crime’s details indicate, to assassinate the citizen Antoine al-Hayek in broad daylight given that he had surrendered to the Lebanese judiciary and the Lebanese laws in the best way possible,” the LF leader added.

He also urged security and judicial authorities to unveil the circumstances of the case in order to “fulfill justice” and “maintain the Lebanese citizen’s minimum level of confidence in the presence of a state in Lebanon.”

Unknown assailants shot dead retired policeman Hayek inside his grocery shop in the town of Miyeh w Miyeh near Sidon. MTV said he was shot by a silencer-equipped pistol from a close distance.

A judicial source told French news agency AFP that Hayek was accused of killing two prisoners during a riot at Khiyam in 1989. He was brought to trial in 2001 but then released because of a statute of limitations.

Privately-owned Akhbar al-Yawm news agency said Hayek had been “a notorious aide" of Amer Fakhoury, another former Khiyam Prison warden whose release this week has sparked major controversy in Lebanon.

Hundreds of members of the Israeli-backed South Lebanon Army militia fled to Israel in the year 2000 and afterwards, including Fakhoury, fearing reprisals if they remained in Lebanon. Others stayed and faced trial, receiving lenient sentences.

Hayek was one of those who stayed in Lebanon and was sentenced to 18 months in jail.

Hasan Hijazi, a former inmate at Khiyam, tweeted Sunday about his experience there. He said Hayek would flog prisoners with a whip and "turn detainees into a punching bag, and beat and kick them."

As for Fakhoury, witnesses have accused him of ordering or taking part in beatings of thousands of inmates at Khiyam, but David Schenker, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, disputed accounts of the man's involvement, saying his name did not come up in previous prosecutions of SLA members and charging that some in Lebanon wanted to use the U.S. citizen's detention as a bargaining chip.