LEBANON

the European Union has asked Lebanon to call off the execution of 15 people that President Emile Lahoud is expected to authorise in the coming days. The president’s signature sets the date for execution. Lahoud may give the go ahead for these executions before closing files dealing with another five cases. The Lebanese Committee for Amnesty has already concluded its considerations on these files. Of the five cases, Lahoud has so far signed the decree authorising the execution of army soldier Fadi Meraash. He is also expected to sign a second decree for the execution of Syrian national Ahmad Hussein, who was found guilty of the 1999 killing of a Surete Generale officer in Sidon. Unofficial sources said the Committee has already recommended capital punishment in four other cases involving an irrevocable death penalty. The Committee found no reason to doubt the verdicts and judged the crimes committed to be of a suitably serious nature to warrant death. If President Lahoud authorises all 24 executions he will go down in Lebanese history as the president during whose mandate a record number of executions was carried out. Post-war president Beshara Khoury authorised 19 executions throughout his mandate from 1943 to 1952. In Italy the issue of executions in Lebanon was brought up in the Senate by Radical senator Pietro Milio. He requested the Italian government to intervene with the Lebanese authorities in favour of the suspension of the executions and to call for the abolition of the death penalty. Photo: President Emile Lahoud