By
Mohammad Zaatari
SIDON,
Lebanon: Closing arguments are set to be made this week in the trial of the confessed
killer of Sidon money changer Mohammad Natout, after lurid details of the crime
emerged during an expedited trial in the South Lebanon Criminal Court.
Judge
Rola Jadayel, the first head of the South Lebanon Criminal Court, decided
Monday that lawyers of accused killer Nasser Fares, a Syrian national, and
Natout’s family lawyers will deliver their final remarks Thursday before a
verdict is issued. Fares faces the death penalty in a trial that has gripped
the southern city.
Fares,
22, is accused of stabbing 67-year-old Natout inside his store in Februaryon
the eastern Sidon highway and stealing $5,000 from the shop. Police arrested
Fares in a taxi on the road to Syria from Aley. He confessed to the killing the
same day.
Public
outcry in Sidon was acute in the aftermath of the killing. Roads were blocked
into the city and a petition for the death penalty for Natout’s killer was
signed by several local politicians.
Sources
close to the case told The Daily Star that Fares confessed to the crime again
in court, also admitting to having sex twice in a brothel immediately after the
killing before his attempt to flee to Syria.
Judicial
experts say the trial has moved unusually quickly. Proceedings are usually
stretched out over years before they reach the trial stage.
During
the trial Monday two witnesses were questioned before Prosecutor General of the
South, Samih Hajj, as well as the lawyers for Natout and Fares. Hajj asked for
closing arguments to be delayed until Thursday.
If the verdict is the death
penalty the case will be transferred to the Beirut Court of Cassesation. Over
50 executions have taken place in Lebanon since the country’s founding. Dozens
of people are on death row, but recent years have seen a revival of efforts to
abolish the penalty.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Local-News/2012/Jun-26/178204-closing-arguments-to-begin-in-sidon-murder-trial.ashx#axzz1ymctop8c
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