Lebanon issues death sentences in 1982 killing of president
A court in Lebanon sentenced in absentia on Friday two Lebanese citizens to death over the 1982 assassination of President-elect Bashir Gemayel, a move praised by his family and supporters, judicial officials said.
More than three decades after Gemayel was killed in a powerful explosion in Beirut, the case still sharply divides Lebanese—some see him as a national hero while others say he was an Israeli agent. The assassination came at the height of the country's 15-year civil war and Israel's invasion of Lebanon.
According to judicial officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, Habib Tanious Shartouni and Nabil Farah al-Alam, both members of the pro-Syrian Syrian Social Nationalist Party, were sentenced to death.
Gemayel was killed along with and 23 supporters at the right-wing Christian Phalange Party headquarters in the east Beirut neighborhood of Ashrafiyeh on Sept. 14, 1982, barely two weeks before he was due to take office.
