Year after Abduction, Fate of Shebli al-Aisamy Unknown

A year after the kidnapping of Syrian opposition member Shebli al-Aisamy in the Lebanese town of Aley, his family began losing hope of seeing him alive.

“We are convinced that the operation was carried out through the Syrian embassy in Beirut with the assistance of Lebanese sides,” his daughter, Raja Sharafeddine, told pan-Arab daily al-Hayat published Sunday.

“There are three witnesses. Among them are those who saw the car and its driver,” she said.

Al-Aisamy’s kidnapping near his daughter’s residence on May 24, 2011 created controversy in Lebanon. Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi has claimed the ISF had "dangerous information" linking the Syrian embassy to the disappearance.

But Syrian Ambassador Ali Abdul Karim Ali has denied any involvement and challenged Rifi to provide evidence.

The kidnapping was one of at least two cases last year in which Lebanese parties were suspected of handing over Syrian dissidents to authorities in Damascus.

Asked whether her father was kidnapped for writing his memoirs in which he detailed the rise of the Baath party to power in Syria, Sharafeddine told al-Hayat that al-Aisamy’s arrest won’t do any good because his memoirs are ready to be published in the U.S. but the family is waiting the appropriate time.

She told the newspaper that he could have been kidnapped for rejecting a request by the Syrian embassy to announce his opposition to the Syrian revolution and back the regime.

The family’s attorney also told al-Hayat that al-Aisamy had rejected to heed a call from the Syrian ambassador to Washington.

“The systematic abduction … is part of the behavior of police regimes and is punishable by international law,” he said.

Al-Aisamy was a founder of the ruling Baath party and served as a vice president to Amin al-Hafez for three years until radical Baathists overthrew them in 1966.

He had lived in exile ever since, in Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt and the United States.

He quit politics in 1992 and eventually got a green card, making him a legal U.S. resident. The 89-year-old was visiting his daughter, who is married to a Lebanese, when he was kidnapped.