After 12 years on the run, Lebanese pop star Fadel Shaker, accused of belonging to a militant Islamist organization responsible for the killing of 18 soldiers in 2013, appeared for the first time in a court in Beirut. For more than a decade, he had been hiding in the southern Palestinian camp of Ain el-Hilweh
After surrendering himself to the Lebanese authorities at the beginning of the month, Lebanese pop star-turned-fugitive, Fadel Shaker, appeared in Beirut’s court on Tuesday, October 21, for the first time after 12 years on the run. Having been hiding for over a decade in the southern Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh – the biggest in the country where Lebanese authorities have no jurisdiction, yet subjected to four phases of disarmament over the past summer -, Shaker, a popular singer born to a Palestinian mother and a Lebanese father, was accused of taking part in 2013 clashes in Abra, Sidon, where Salafist Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir and 33 of his supporters confronted the Lebanese military, leaving 18 soldiers and 11 militiamen dead.
Initially sentenced to death in 2017, Shaker’s sentence was reduced in 2020 to 22 years in prison in absentia, for providing financial and logistical support to the Assir-led Islamist group. While Shaker was a supporter of the Sunni preacher – himself sentenced to death after the arrest in 2015, almost unrecognizable having changed his physical appearance while carrying a fake passport and trying to flee to Egypt -, he denied involvement in the clashes.
However, shortly after the 2013 shootout, Shaker appeared in a video uploaded to YouTube in which he called his enemies pigs and dogs, and taunted the military, saying “we have two rotting corpses that we snatched from you yesterday,” an apparent reference to slain soldiers.
“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 Agence France-Presse (AFP). 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.”
Under an arrangement that prompted him to surrender, the sentences issued in absentia would be dropped, and he would face questioning ahead of a new trial on charges of committing crimes against the military. Tuesday’s court appearance was therefore a preliminary hearing.
A crooner turned fugitive
Shaker’s decision reportedly came after months of pressure and threats against him inside the camp, tied to his return to music and the release of his latest album, according to several local media outlets. Only last July, in fact, while still in hiding, Shaker released a song titled Ahla Rasma, ‘The most beautiful painting’, which topped charts in the Arab world. His video clip, filmed in Ain al-Hilweh along with his son Mohammed, reached almost 190 million views on YouTube.
Having become a pop star throughout the Arab world with a smash hit in 2002, almost 10 years later, he fell under the influence of al-Assir and shocked fans by turning up next to the hard-line cleric at rallies and later saying that he was giving up singing to become closer to God. However, Shaker stopped making music only in 2011, coinciding with the beginning of the uprisings in Syria, but returned to the spotlight in December 2024 after the fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, releasing two songs dedicated to Damascus: Hay Shamna, ‘This is our Levant’, and Alsham Fattah, ‘Damascus is open’ – along with other new singles.
His music, once devoted mainly to themes of love and romance, has over the years increasingly focused on the Syrian cause – to the point that last April, the Syrian artists’ union awarded Shaker the title of honorary member in recognition of his “remarkable artistic career” and his “humanitarian commitment to the cause of the Syrian people.”
In the occasion of the release of Hay Shamna, he shared an audio clip on his Instagram account, praising the fall of the regime by saying that “freedom has returned to Syria after 13 years of dreaming and sacrifice, freedom has returned to the Syrian people who have stood firm in the face of suffering and pain, and have remained so until the last moment clinging to the dream of freedom and the will to persevere;” “today,” he continued, “new lines will be written in Syria’s broad and honorable history: a wonderful image for the whole world. Greetings to the people of Damascus, to the people of Syria. The great, loving, forgiving people, Syria has been liberated and we are all free today.”
Words that, on the one hand, echo the sense of liberation felt by millions of Syrians, but on the other risk overshadowing the legitimacy of Assad’s fall with blind faith in the actions of the Islamists now in command of the country, thus blurring the line between freedom and fanaticism, and erasing the weight of terrorism charges that hang not only over the singer and hundreds of other detainees – around 350 in total, including 180 Lebanese, among whom al-Assir himself, and 170 Syrians -, but also over many criminals who continue to stain their hands with blood along the coast and in the south of this new, sadly predictable Syria.
Calls for amnesty
Shortly after the fall of the Assad regime in neighboring Syria, dozens of Assir’s supporters and the families of those arrested in the Abra clashes held a protest march in front of the Bilal bin Rabah mosque in the town, right after the Friday Muslim prayers, calling for the release of the Salafi Sheikh and the Islamist detainees, as well as the closure of the Abra incident case.
Brandishing banners and photos of al-Assir and chanting slogans and songs, the protesters marched through the streets under the watch of a Lebanese army security force. At the mosque, where speeches were delivered, the demonstrators accused Hezbollah – particularly leader Wafic Safa – and former dissident MP of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), Shamel Roukoz, of “getting involved in the events of Abra to harm Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir and his companions.”
More generally, protests by the families of Islamist detainees in Lebanon have multiplied in recent months, denouncing what they describe as the “unjust” imprisonment of their relatives – forced to suffer inhumane conditions among the country’s prisons ongoing crisis – and calling for a general amnesty against the backdrop of the change of regime in Syria. “The Syrian revolution remains a prisoner in Lebanon,” proclaimed one sign held by demonstrators in front of Roumieh prison, illustrated with a photo of al-Assir and, in the background, the flag of the Syrian revolution, according to images from Al-Modon and reports by L’Orient-Le Jour.
“Enough injustice,” Ahmad al-Assir said in a short video published at the end of December 2024 by Al-Jazeera, calling on the Lebanese authorities “to lift the injustice against any victim,” particularly against “the Islamists or those considered Islamists who are the object of a war of elimination.” And he specified that “the majority of the cases of Islamists or those considered as such are linked to the events in Syria.” “This case must be closed completely and definitively,” insisted the Sheikh.
The issue of the Islamist detainees’ release was tackled just two weeks ago, on Friday, October 10, during Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Shaibani’s long-awaited visit to Beirut. While the new Islamist-led rulers in Damascus have for months pressed for their release – Beirut has said that all those involved in attacks on Lebanese security forces will not be freed, yet has vowed to speed up the trials of detainees who have remained behind bars without sentence for years.
Calls for accountability
On the other hand, Josephine Bou Saab, sister of First Lieutenant George Bou Saab, one of the Lebanese Army soldiers killed in the Abra clashes of 2013, warned against any negotiation over the blood of the soldiers killed.
“Because of a terrorist and hashish addict, we are being deprived of my brother. After 12 years of hiding like a rat, he decided to turn himself in,” Josephine wrote on X. “It is clear that he didn’t surrender because his conscience was clear,” she continued. “I don’t want to believe that the only institution I trust in this country could negotiate over the blood of martyrs. I won’t be dragged into preconceived notions. I will wait and see what happens next.”
Samira Hobeika, mother of the same soldier, also wrote on X: “What pains me most is that under President Joseph Aoun’s tenure, a deal could be made over the blood of the Lebanese Army martyrs. A question to His Excellency the President: Is this the justice and fairness we aspire to?” she asked rhetorically.
According to reports by L’Orient-Le Jour, Shaker was convinced to come out of hiding after being given security guarantees and following the involvement of some Arab countries.
