Daily Star - Angry Ketermaya mob lynch murder suspect, April 30, 2010

By Mohammed Zaatari
Daily Star staff

KETERMAYA: Angry residents of the Chouf town of Ketermaya took matters into their own hands Thursday by executing the suspected murderer of four members of the same family in the village.
Internal Security Forces (ISF) arrested the Egyptian national Mohammad Salim al-Msallem Wednesday after raiding his house in Ketermaya over suspicion that he killed Youssef Abu Merhi, his wife Kawthar and their two granddaughters Amina and Zeina, 7 and 9 respectively.
Reports said that a knife covered with blood was found inside a heap of clothes at the perpetrator’s house.
Msallem was taken to nearby Shheem police station where he confessed upon interrogation that he committed the crime.
The suspect was taken back to the crime scene in Abu Merhi’s house to re-enact the killing of the four victims when he was surrounded by angry residents yelling: “Guys!! they got the killer, revenge … revenge!!”
The outraged residents broke into the house in their hundreds and left security members unable to intervene as they beat Msallem, shouting “beat him, stone him to death.”
The ISF fired in the air and freed Msallem from the mob, rushing him to a hospital in nearby Sibleen.
However, the mob then drove Msallem out of the ambulance and killed him using knives and sticks while he was still chained.
Msallem’s lifeless body was then tied to a car and dragged through the street, before they undressed him down to his underwear and hanged him from a power grid post.
Crowds gathered around the dangling body and many people were seen taking photographs. Women cheered and men chanted slogans praising the act while reciting verses of Koran.
The masses, that were taking pictures using their cell phones, urged correspondents from media institutions to move away from the scene and not to take photographs.
“Will you portray the criminal as a hero while labeling us as criminals and killers? We are implementing God’s verdict, and this is the least we could do,” one of them told reporters.
Mohammad Abu Merhi, from Ketermaya, justified the villagers’ reaction.
“Don’t forget the horrors of the crime he committed. No one can prevent the residents from behaving as such, don’t blame people for their reaction,” he said.
Interior and Municipalities Minister Ziyad Baroud condemned the crime, and expressed regret that “rights were retrieved through means othern than judicial procedures and before revealing all the details of the crime.”
Baroud held a meeting in his office with security officials to discuss the Thursday’s incident.


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