Lebanon executed three convicted murderers at dawn yesterday, ending a 5-year hiatus on applying the death penalty, despite protests by the EU and human rights groups.
All three men were executed in the courtyard of the Roumieh prison, the country's main penitentiary in a northern suburb of Beirut. Journalists were barred.
Ahmed Mansour was hanged for the July 2002 killing of eight of his colleagues in a shooting spree at a government building. Remy Zaatar, who killed three army intelligence personnel in July 2002, and Badieh Hamadeh, who killed two civil defense colleagues in June 2002, were shot by firing squad.
Security officials said the men's families were permitted to spend half an hour with them on Friday night, but were not allowed to witness their executions. Clergymen for the three men, a Christian, a Shiite and a Sunni Muslim, were allowed to see them before their deaths, as well as a judge to take down their will.
Hamadeh and Zaatar refused to be blindfolded, the officials added, speaking on condition of anonymity. Hamadeh, an Islamic fundamentalist, said he was unrepentant, claiming he committed the murders in self defense.
Afterward, the bodies were taken to a government hospital on the outskirts of Beirut for their families to collect them.
While capital punishment is common in the Middle East, Lebanon went through a five-year break in executions because former Prime Minister Salim Hoss had refused to sign the death orders during his time in office, saying capital punishment was contrary to his convictions. Officials said the three executed yesterday were picked from a list of 27 on death row because of the nature of their crimes.
The executions were criticized by the EU and human rights groups, which on Friday appealed to President Emile Lahoud to halt the executions. Lahoud is in the final year of his six-year term.
The EU Presidency on Friday expressed "dismay" at the Lebanese decision and urged Lahoud to use his authority to reverse the decision.
The local Future TV station yesterday quoted French Foreign Ministry spokesman Herve Ladsous as saying that the executions violated a commitment the Lebanese government made when it signed the partnership agreement with the EU in 2002.
Amnesty International urged the Lahoud to halt the executions. Local human rights groups also condemned the executions, staging sit-ins outside the prison and the parliament in downtown Beirut.
Some protests were violent. A dynamite stick exploded on Friday evening near a Lebanese army barracks close to the Palestinian Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp in the southern city of Sidon. Hamadeh was linked to Islamic extremists in the camp.
Hamadeh had taken refuge in Ein el-Hilweh camp -- which is off-limits to the Lebanese army -- after he killed the three servicemen. But five days later a Palestinian militant group handed Hamadeh over to the army.
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