Lebanon 0
19 March 2020

The U.S. State Department announced that “American citizen Amer Fakhoury, who has been in detention in Lebanon since September [2019], is returning to the U.S. where he will be reunited with his family and receive urgent medical treatment”. A senior U.S. diplomat subsequently emphasised that “Mr. Fakhoury was released by competent judicial authorities… We did not promise money, we did not promise to release prisoners, we did not promise not to designate any Lebanese officials, and we absolutely don’t talk to Hizbollah”. Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah contended that “the U.S. ha[d] been for six months exerting all forms of pressures and threats against Lebanon in order to release Fakhoury”.

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