LF member released after outcry over arrest
21/12/02-Daily Star: Fadi Shamati, a member of the banned Lebanese Forces Party, was released from custody on Friday.
Judicial sources said Thursday that Shamati had been arrested for allegedly possessing “coded papers containing specific information that called for an investigation.”Earlier, the Toronto-based Lebanese-Canadian Human Rights Federation denounced Shamati’s arrest and called for his release. The statement said that Shamati, who is a distributor for the Tannourine Bottling company, was picked up from his workplace Wednesday and that and his residence was raided “without any legal or humanitarian justification.” It appealed to “countries of the free world,” the United Nations and human rights organizations to intervene to determine where Shamati was being held and seek his timely release. Shamati’s arrest and detention were illegal, as they were carried out by army intelligence officers who had no authority to detain a civilian suspect, the statement claimed.