Blair phones Sinoura, Damascus wanted Islamist scholar Bakri
Lebanon-UK, Politics, 8/12/2005

The case of the detained Islamist scholar, Sheikh Omar Bakri, had went from becoming a legal issue and media story to become a political issue where local, regional and international dimensions intermingled.

After the detention of Bakri in Beirut for interrogation, several Lebanese ministers on Thursday evening warned against the consequences of an international intelligence deal that might drag Lebanon to get involved in greater conflicts.

In its today's issue, the Lebanese daily Assafir said that the Lebanese prime minister Foaud Sinoura received on Thursday a phone call from his British peer Tony Blair that concentrated on the events of Bakri's arrival in Beirut. The soon the call ended, Sinoura told Lebanese security circles concerned that the Syrian authorities telephoned him officially asking for handing Bakri in his being a Syrian citizen, and there are warrants of arrest in absentia against him, while Arab and foreign embassies joined the line and inquired how the state of Lebanon is dealing with his case.

In light of all these, the question of Bakri occupied a great deal of the discussions of the Lebanese cabinet which was held in the Presidential Palace in Ba'abda under the chairmanship of the Lebanese President Emil Lahoud. The ministers listened to explanations provided by Sinoura and the minister of the interior Hassan al-Saba on the events of Bakri's arrival in Beirut and the observations made by the Britons and others in this regard, and conditions on his custody on Thursday and the Syrian request to get custody of him.

Following interventions by several Lebanese officials views concentrated during the Cabinet's discussions on that Bakri is to be treated with dignity and his rights are to be preserved and not to be maltreated with the possibility of keeping him beyond the reserve period of 72 hours, and then he might be released but under the condition to be banned from travel until Syria's request is considered.

Omar Bakri Muhammad Fustuk, 46 year old, was born in Lebanon and hold dual Lebanese-Syrian citizenship as he stated his TV interview before he had left London by the end of last week in order to visit his sick mother in Lebanon.

Previous Stories:
  Lebanese authorities detains and frees Islamist Omar Bakri   (8/12/2005)
  Galloway on the Syrian-Lebanese relations   (7/25/2005)
  British ambassador in Lebanon: Syrian withdrawal is a positive step   (4/6/2005)
  Lebanese foreign ministry deplores Straw's statements   (3/14/2005)

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