Lebanese cabinet discusses municipal draft bill
Lebanon, Politics, 12/19/1997

In its Thursday's public session, chaired by Nabih Berri, Lebanese Parliament discussed the municipal elections draft bill which covers all Lebanese districts.

The participants in the meeting endorsed an amnesty provided for pardoning all drug crimes committed before December 12, 1995.

The majority vote by the 128-member parliament came less than two months after U.S. President Bill Clinton removed Lebanon from a list of major drug-producing countries.

The bill also increased sentences for drug-related crimes committed after the amnesty from seven years to 15 years at hard labor.

The amnesty covers all drug-related crimes during the Lebanese civil war and up till the year 1996. The move spares over 30,000 fugitives in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley wanted on charges of drug trade.

Also spared would be Yehia Shamas, a former member of parliament who was sentenced on June 1996 to seven years at hard labor on drug-trafficking charges.

Twenty-three other defendants were convicted as accomplices, and given four-year jail terms each.

Shamas represented the town of Baalbek in parliament. Drug cultivation was rampant during the civil war days. Ever since the end of the war in 1990, the government, aided by Syrian troops, has successfully cracked down on hashish growth.

The bill, which still needs to be ratified by President Elias Hrawi, was described as a "crime" by deputy Issam Fares.

"Pardoning drug crimes is a crime against Lebanon, its reputation and its people's welfare," he said after walking out from parliament.

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