Expanded Sunni Parliamentary Meeting Discusses Proposed Amnesty Law

Today, the expanded Sunni parliamentary meeting was held in the Parliament, in the presence of MPs Bilal Abdullah, Nabil Badr, Bilal Al-Hashemi, Adnan Traboulsi, Abdul Rahman Al-Bizri, Ahmed Al-Khair, Imad Al-Hout, and Ihab Matar, and discussed the proposed amnesty law.

Abdullah

After the meeting, MP Abdullah said: “The Sunni MPs held the second expanded meeting in the Parliament, with the majority in attendance, and we discussed the paper prepared by the drafting committee composed of myself and colleagues Nabil Badr, Imad Al-Hout, Ahmed Al-Khair, and Abdul Rahman Al-Bizri, and it was approved, and it is related to long work in the joint committees.”

He considered that “the approach to this file is a national, humanitarian approach far from sectarianism,” and said: “Our national duty is to lift this grievance not only from this segment, but from all Lebanese. We have reached a positive conclusion, and we have unified our position on the basic points raised, meaning that the death penalty, which is still a proposed law in the Parliament, does not affect the issue of reducing penalties, i.e., the general amnesty.”

Al-Hout

For his part, Al-Hout said: “Today, in the expanded Sunni parliamentary meeting, we completed our vision of the elements that allow handling the file of ‘Islamist detainees’ in a way that alleviates the injustice inflicted upon them, contributes to closing a painful past chapter, contributes to societal and national reconciliation, and achieves justice and fairness while respecting the rights of the victims.”

He detailed “the four points that were adopted, namely:

1- Amending the proposed law to abolish the death penalty, in a way that achieves the purpose of the proposal and prevents any reflection of it on the general amnesty law.

2- Specifying the crimes that make personal right an obstacle to benefiting from the reduction of penalties, as heinous murder crimes stipulated in the Penal Code as aggravating elements.

3- Releasing those whose detention period has exceeded 12 years in prison and who have not yet received a final judgment, and continuing their trial without suspension.

4- Calling on the Prime Minister to follow up on the implementation of the provisions of Article 108 of the Code of Criminal Procedure by issuing a circular from the Public Prosecution Office, judicial inspection monitoring proper application, and obligating public prosecutions to submit periodic reports on long detentions.”