PARIS: French authorities will on Monday ask Lebanon to lift the immunity of Beirut’s ambassador to Paris after an investigation was opened into alleged rape and intentional violence by the envoy, a source said.
“Steps in this direction will be taken during the day,” a French diplomatic source, who asked not to be named, told AFP.
The ambassador, Rami Adwan, is being investigated in France following complaints by two former embassy employees. He has diplomatic immunity but could face trial if Lebanon agrees to France’s request.
Lebanon’s foreign ministry said Saturday that it would send an investigation team to the embassy in Paris to question the ambassador and hear statements from embassy staff.
The first former employee, aged 31, filed her complaint in June 2022 for a rape she says was committed in May 2020 in the ambassador’s private apartment, according to sources close to the investigation, confirming a report by the Mediapart news site.
According to the complaint, she had a relationship with the ambassador, who carried out “psychological and physical violence with daily humiliations.”
The second woman, aged 28, made a complaint last February after what she said was a series of physical attacks after she turned down sexual relations.
She says Adwan tried to hit her with his car after an argument on the sidelines of last year’s Normandy World Peace Forum.
“In view of the seriousness of the facts mentioned, we consider it necessary for the Lebanese authorities to lift the immunity of the Lebanese ambassador in Paris in order to facilitate the work of the French judicial authorities,” the French foreign ministry told AFP late Friday.
Adwan’s lawyer Karim Beylouni has said his client “contests all accusations of aggression in any shape or form: verbal, moral, sexual.”
He said Adwan had had “romantic relationships” with the two women between 2018 and 2022 that were “punctuated by arguments and breakups.”
France seeks removal of Lebanese ambassador’s immunity after rape accusation
https://arab.news/gxp7h
France seeks removal of Lebanese ambassador’s immunity after rape accusation
- The first former employee, aged 31, filed her complaint in June 2022 for a rape she says was committed in May 2020 in the ambassador’s private apartment
- The second woman made a complaint last February after what she said was a series of physical attacks after she turned down sexual relations
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
- Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade
DAMASCUS: The UN refugee agency said Sunday that a large number of residents of a camp housing family members of suspected Daesh group militants have left and the Syrian government plans to relocate those who remain.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR’s representative in Syria, said in a statement that the agency “has observed a significant decrease in the number of residents in Al-Hol camp in recent weeks.”
“Syrian authorities have informed UNHCR of their plan to relocate the remaining families to Akhtarin camp in Aleppo Governorate (province) and have requested UNHCR’s support to assist the population in the new camp, which we stand ready to provide,” he said.
He added that UNHCR “will continue to support the return and reintegration of Syrians who have departed Al-Hol, as well as those who remain.”
The statement did not say how residents had left the camp or how many remain. Many families are believed to have escaped either during the chaos when government forces captured the camp from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces last month or afterward.
There was no immediate statement from the Syrian government and a government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
At its peak after the defeat of IS in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at Al-Hol. Since then, the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of IS members.
The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.
Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
Separately, thousands of accused IS militants who were held in detention centers in northeastern Syria have been transferred to Iraq to stand trial under an agreement with the US
The US military said Friday that it had completed the transfer of more than 5,700 adult male IS suspects from detention facilities in Syria to Iraqi custody.
Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said a total of 5,704 suspects from 61 countries who were affiliated with IS — most of them Syrian and Iraqi — were transferred from prisons in Syria. They are now being interrogated in Iraq.
