|
Israel Finally Returns Murdered Lebanese Pilot's Body
NAQOURA, Lebanon, July 23 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Israel returned Monday the body of a trainee Lebanese pilot it shot down in May, citing fears he was launching a massive attack on Israeli cities, news agencies reported.
Witnesses said representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) handed over the body of Stephan Ohannis Nicolian through the Rosh Hanikra crossing point on the Lebanon-Israel border to the town of Naqoura, according to the French news agency AFP.
Israeli air force helicopters shot down Nicolian's plane after it took off from Beirut on May 24, a year after Israel withdrew from south Lebanon after a 22-year occupation.
Israel said the pilot failed to respond to radio calls and signals from air force planes to land and claimed he was flying towards heavily populated central Israel with the intention of deliberately crashing, news agencies reported.
The two Israeli F-16 fighter pilots who shot down Nicolian claim they suspected the Lebanese plane of being on a kamikaze mission.
Lebanese Interior Minister Elias Murr said the 43-year-old Nikolian, who was of Armenian origin and was a trainee pilot, had "psychiatric problems," AFP reported.
Lebanese media reported recently that U.S. mediation had helped secure an agreement to return the body of Nicolian, reported to be a U.S. citizen.
Lebanese security sources said members of Nicolian's family hold U.S. passports, but were not able to immediately confirm that he was a U.S. citizen.
"It is ... not a gesture of goodwill toward Hezbollah," an Israeli military official said last week, however, of Israel's decision to hand over the murdered Lebanese pilot's body.
The Israeli media has suggested the government hoped that by handing over the body, the Lebanese resistance Hizbollah group would agree to release information on the fate of three Israeli soldiers it captured in a raid on the Shebaa Farms area last October.
The Israeli-Lebanese border has been tense since the pullout, with Israel frequently encroaching on Shebaa Farms, prompting Syrian and Iranian-backed Hizbollah resistance fighters to respond to Israeli troops escalations.
The United Nations has recognized Israel's pullout as complete, but does not endorse the Israeli claims to Shebaa Farms, which the U.N regards as Israeli-occupied Syrian territory.
|
