Lebanese Singer Fadl Shaker Sentenced to 22 Years in Prison

Lebanese singer Fadl Shaker was sentenced Wednesday to 22-years in prison in absentia and stripped of his civil rights by the Lebanese Military Court, headed by Brigadier General Mounir Shehadeh.

The court issued two judgments in absentia against Shaker. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for providing logistical services to terrorists, according to the National News Agency.

Shaker was sentenced to 7 years in prison and fined 5,000,000 liras for financing the Ahmed Al-Assir armed group and providing them money for weapons and ammunition.

The Lebanese singer had retired from singing at the end of 2012 and associated his name with the Salafist group Ahmed Al-Asir before reappearing and resuming his career in 2018.

This is not the first time for Shakir to be sentenced to prison. He was previously sentenced to five years in prison in 2016, as well as 15 years imprisonment in the case of “Abra Events” between the Lebanese army and the Ahmed al-Assir group in 2017, but he obtained an acquittal in 2018.

In 2017, the Military Court in Lebanon declared the verdict of the death penalty for Sheikh Ahmed Al-Assir on charges of carrying out terrorist acts against the Lebanese army, in the city of Sidon, in southern Lebanon, in 2013.

The Lebanese security forces arrested Al-Assir while he was trying to flee to Egypt with a fake passport in 2015, while Shaker hid out of sight.