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Israel Frees Lebanese Held For 13 Years
KFAR KILA, April 5 (AFP)-Israel released Wednesday Ghassan Dirani, 35, a Lebanese who was kidnapped 13 years ago. Dirani was handed over by Israeli authorities to a delegation of the International Committee for the Red Cross at the Fatima Gate, the crossing point at the Lebanese-Israeli international borders.
He was immediately whisked in an ICRC car across the Israeli-occupied border zone in southern Lebanon toward the Kfar Falous passageway where he was handed over to the Lebanese army.
"I was kidnapped at the age of 22 in the eastern sector during the days of Samir Geagea and they handed me over to the Israelis. I stayed in prison in Israel for 13 years," said Dirani.
Geagea was the head of the now disbanded pro-Israeli Christian Lebanese Forces militia, which controlled east Beirut and surrounding mountains during the country's 1975-1990 civil war.
In Beirut, ICRC representative in Lebanon Henry Fournier said earlier Wednesday that Red Cross officials had gone to the border to arrange Dirani's return to Lebanon. Fournier said he would be reunited with his family at Kfar Falous, east of the southern port city of Sidon.
Earlier Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the Tel Aviv district court, Anat Naor, said that Dirani was being released from administrative detention following the decision of Uri Goren, the president of the district court in Tel Aviv.
The decision was taken because Dirani is in poor health, she said. Dirani is the nephew of Mustapha Dirani, a Shi’ite Muslim leader abducted from Lebanon in 1994 who claims to have been tortured during his captivity. Last month Mustapha Dirani's lawyer, Tzvi Rish, filed a $1.5-million lawsuit against Israel, saying his client had been systematically beaten and raped by his Israeli jailers.
Dirani is one of several leading Shi’ite figures being held by Israel as bargaining chips to secure the return of missing Israeli servicemen, including air force navigator Ron Arad, who was captured in Lebanon in 1986. Another is Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid, abducted in 1989 and held incommunicado in Israel ever since. A further 19 Lebanese are imprisoned under similar circumstances.
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