In an interview with our colleague Bassam Abou Zeid on LBCI, MP Selim Sayegh criticized the attitude of the Lebanese state, which abstained from voting in favor of the United Nations General Assembly resolution of establishing a UN body to oversee the issue of the disappeared in Syria. Rejecting the Lebanese state’s stance on this matter, Sayegh recalled that there are people who have disappeared in Syria.
“The Lebanese state’s position is individual and partisan, and is linked to the Syrian position,” stated the MP. “We have many disappeared people in Syria, one of them being Boutros Khawand. Some witnesses claim to have seen him in Syria (in detention), while others refute these claims. However, the information we have corroborates the testimonies about his presence in Syria,” Sayegh affirmed.
He also stressed that Jihad Azour’s presidential candidacy was very serious, and “had a second round taken place, Jihad Azour would have been president today.”
Sayegh believes that the caretaker government is against the election of a president and that Speaker Nabi Berri’s responsibility is to keep parliament in session until a president is elected.
Boutros Khawand, a former member of the Kataeb political bureau, was abducted in September 1992 by armed elements in front of his home in Horch Tabet. Since then, several rumors about his fate have circulated. In 2000, a Lebanese woman who had survived Syrian prison claimed to have met Khawand in his place of detention in Syria.
