Fadel Shaker's trial to 'start from zero'

Fadel Shaker’s legal representatives intend to ask the Military Court to schedule a trial session for him, informed sources said.

“His trial in the Military Court will be repeated from square one, seeing as after he turned himself in, all the in-absentia verdicts against him have become null and void,” the sources told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.

Shaker surrendered himself to Lebanese authorities on Saturday after hiding in a Palestinian camp for over a decade, the Lebanese Army said.

Shaker, a popular singer born to a Palestinian mother and a Lebanese father, was accused of taking part in 2013 clashes in Sidon, south Lebanon, that pitted Salafist Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir and his supporters against the Lebanese Army which left 17 soldiers dead.

While Shaker was a supporter of Assir, he denied involvement in the clashes and went into hiding in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh, the biggest Palestinian camp in the country where Lebanese authorities had no jurisdiction.

Assir was sentenced to death in 2017, then to 20 years of hard labor in 2021.

In 2020, Lebanon's military tribunal sentenced Shaker to 22 years in prison for providing financial and logistical support to the "terrorist" Assir-led group.

"Fadel Shaker surrendered himself to the Lebanese Army at the entrance to the Ain al-Hilweh camp as a prelude to concluding his legal case," a judicial source told AFP on Saturday.

By longstanding convention, the Lebanese Army stays out of the Palestinian camps and leaves Palestinian factions to handle security.

A source close to Shaker told AFP the singer "believes in his innocence and trusts in the independence of the Lebanese judiciary, which will do him justice this time."

Shaker in July released a song while in hiding, "Kifek Aa Fraqi", which topped charts in the Arab world.

His video clip, filmed in Ain al-Hilweh, reached over 113 million views on YouTube.