Lebanese sentenced to death for spying for Israel
AFP
BEIRUT - A retired member of Lebanon's Internal Security Forces was sentenced on Thursday to death for having spied for Israel and for his involvement in the murder of two Palestinian militant leaders.
Mahmoud Qassem Rafeh, 63, was convicted of "collaboration and espionage on behalf of the Israeli enemy," according to the verdict handed down by a military tribunal.
Lebanese internal security forces
A second defendant, Hussein Sleiman Khattab, was convicted in absentia.
Under Lebanese law, they have the right to appeal. At the same time, any death sentenced must be signed both by the country's prime minister and its president to be carried out.
Rafeh remains accused of the murder of Hezbollah officials Ali Hassan Dib in 1998 and Ali Hussein Saleh in 2003, as well as the 2002 murder of Jihad Jibril, son of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command leader Ahmad Jibril.
The trial for those killings is still underway.
Rafeh was arrested in 2006 and confessed last year to having collaborated with Israeli intelligence agents from 1993.
More than 70 people were arrested in Lebanon in 2009 in a crackdown on espionage rings, including a retired general and a policeman.
Lebanon and Israel remain in a state of war, and convicted spies face life in prison with hard labour or the death penalty if found guilty of contributing to Lebanese loss of life.
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