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Americans Held Overseas in Iran and Lebanon Are Freed
(32 minutes later)
BEIRUT, Lebanon — The United States government extracted an American citizen from Beirut on Thursday, plucking the man out of Lebanon in a military aircraft after he had been detained for months on decades-old charges of torturing Lebanese prisoners.
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Thursday announced the release of two Americans imprisoned overseas and said it had intensified demands for a third, amid global fears that the coronavirus could quickly spread among detainees and result in deaths.
Amer Fakhoury, a Lebanese-born naturalized American citizen, departed from the U.S. Embassy and was bound for his home state of New Hampshire, Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a New Hampshire Democrat, announced on Thursday.
Amer Fakhoury, a Lebanese-born naturalized American citizen, was headed to his home state of New Hampshire from Beirut, where he had been detained for months on decades-old charges of torturing Lebanese prisoners.
“Anytime a U.S. citizen is wrongfully detained by a foreign government, we must use every tool at our disposal to free them,” the senator said in a news release. “No family should have to go through what the Fakhoury family has gone through.”
“Any time a U.S. citizen is wrongfully detained by a foreign government, we must use every tool at our disposal to free them,” said Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, as Mr. Fakhoury flew back to the United States on a military aircraft. “No family should have to go through what the Fakhoury family has gone through.”
Shortly afterward President Trump, who had taken a special interest in Mr. Fakhoury’s case, opened a White House briefing on the coronavirus by congratulating American officials on securing his release.
Separately, Michael R. White, a U.S. Navy veteran and cancer patient, was released from an Iranian prison where he had been held since July 2018, the State Department announced. Mr. White, of Imperial Beach, Calif., was freed on a medical furlough.
“We are bringing another American citizen home,” Mr. Trump told reporters, calling the news “big, very big.”
For now, he must remain in Iran, undergoing medical testing and evaluation at the Swiss Embassy in Tehran, which has acted as a diplomatic intermediary between the United States and Iran.
Mr. Fakhoury’s rescue was the finale to weeks of U.S. government efforts to win his freedom after his arrest on Sept. 12, a day after he returned to Lebanon for the first time in 20 years. A widely reviled figure in Lebanon, Mr. Fakhoury is accused of collaborating with Israeli forces during their 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon, where, as a member of a Christian-dominated militia, he was charged with having overseen the torture of fellow Lebanese at a prison that remains notorious for its brutality to this day.
“The United States will continue to work for Michael’s full release as well as the release of all wrongfully detained Americans in Iran,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. He said Mr. White had been “wrongfully detained” and was serving a 13-year sentence on charges that included insulting Iran’s supreme leader and posting private photographs on social media.
Mr. Fakhoury, who has stage 4 lymphoma, was released from jail earlier this week after a judge ruled that the statute of limitations to prosecute him had expired. But, amid an outcry from some Lebanese, a military judge quickly intervened to appeal the decision, complicating his planned departure from the country.
Mr. White was arrested in the northeastern city of Mashhad while visiting an Iranian friend.
American officials had been ready to medically evacuate Mr. Fakhoury when the Lebanese military judge moved to restart the prosecution, a senior administration official with knowledge of the operation said. But the administration decided to extract him on Thursday morning despite the injunction, picking him up from the U.S. Embassy outside Beirut in an Osprey aircraft and transferring him to a regular plane during a stop on the nearby island of Cyprus.
And at the White House, President Trump said he was working to free Austin Tice, a journalist and former Marine who was abducted in Syria in August 2012. The Trump administration has made repeated efforts to try and secure his release but with no success.
The official said the evacuation was legal and did not violate airspace.
“We’re working very hard with Syria to get him out,” Mr. Trump said. “We hope the Syrian government will do that. We are counting on them to do that. We’ve written a letter just recently.”
The operation was the latest episode in the Trump administration’s campaign to free American hostages and prisoners abroad, a high priority of Mr. Trump and his national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, who previously had been the government’s designated hostage negotiator.
It was not immediately clear what letter the president was referring to.
Mr. Fakhoury’s case drew the attention of senior U.S. senators, as well as coverage by a Fox News Channel program watched regularly by President Trump. Senior Trump administration diplomats pressured the Lebanese government, warning that the case risked rupturing its relationship with Washington, which sent the country more than $2.29 billion in military assistance between 2005 and 2019.
Michael Crowley and Lara Jakes reported from Washington, and Vivian Yee from Beirut, Lebanon. Adam Goldman contributed reporting from Washington.
That aid was temporarily frozen in the fall as administration officials and Republicans in Congress argued that the Lebanese armed forces are controlled by Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group and Lebanese political party, but there was no indication on Thursday that the assistance package was directly tied to Mr. Fakhoury’s case.
Lebanon cannot afford to lose any aid at the moment. Stumbling through simultaneous political, economic and fiscal crises, the country recently defaulted on $1.2 billion in foreign debt.
Trump administration officials believe that Mr. Fakhoury’s arrest was directed by Hezbollah, which plays a major role in the country’s multisectarian government. The United States has recently applied intense pressure on Hezbollah as part of its campaign against Iran and its regional proxies, and some Trump officials have proposed formally designating it a terrorist group.
Hezbollah is certainly no friend of Mr. Fakhoury. The group’s guerrilla tactics helped drive Israeli forces out of south Lebanon in 2000, after an 18-year occupation that began during Lebanon’s civil war, and it issued a statement after his release calling on the Lebanese judiciary to reverse the decision.
“Since day one of arresting the criminal agent and killer Amer Fakhoury, American pressures and threats were made, secretly and openly, to force Lebanon to release him,” the statement said, condemning what it called his “bloody and black history.”
“It is a sad day for Lebanon and justice,” the statement added.
Mr. Fakhoury, 56, was born in Lebanon and fought during the country’s civil war in the South Lebanon Army or SLA, a Christian-run militia that earned the enduring resentment of Lebanese in the Muslim-dominated south for having acted as a proxy force for Israel during its occupation.
Lebanese officials have accused Mr. Fakhoury of being a former warden at a notorious SLA prison camp in southern Lebanon, which remains something of a national landmark for what human rights groups describe as torture and mistreatment of prisoners. His family and U.S. officials say there is no evidence that Mr. Fakhoury participated in any crimes there.
“It’s hard to put into words how grateful and relieved we are to finally be returning to the United States with Amer,” his family said in a statement released by Ms. Shaheen’s office. “We have been through a nightmare that we would never wish on anyone.”
Mr. Fakhoury was convicted by a Lebanese court in 1996 of having collaborated with Israel, but those charges were later dropped. He fled the country soon after, taking refuge in Israel before coming to the United States, where he opened a restaurant in Dover, N.H., named Little Lebanon to Go. Mr. Fakhoury became active in Republican politics and supported Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign, during which he was photographed alongside the future president at an event. He became a U.S. citizen last year.
After Lebanese government officials in the United States assured him last year that he could return to the country safely, he embarked on a planned vacation in September, his first visit in 20 years. But when he arrived in Beirut on Sept. 11, immigration officials confiscated his passport and told him he would undergo a background check and should return to pick up his passport in a few days.
As he waited, Al Akhbar, a Lebanese newspaper, published an article accusing him of practicing torture at the prison, known as Khiam.
Mr. Fakhoury was arrested when he visited a government office to pick up his passport the next day, Sept. 12. He was charged with murder, attempted murder, torture and abduction.
Protesters outside his court appearance called him a “butcher” and displayed hangman’s nooses.
Back in the United States, his case was championed by Ms. Shaheen and became a cause for some conservatives, including Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, who co-sponsored legislation with Ms. Shaheen that would sanction senior Lebanese officials over his imprisonment.
Mr. Fakhoury’s plight also drew the attention of the conservative Fox News network, and was the subject of a Jan. 23 segment on Fox & Friends, a morning program that President Trump is known to watch regularly.
A lawyer for his family told Fox & Friends in January that Mr. Fakhoury was “tortured, held hostage and dying.”
Vivian Yee reported from Beirut, and Michael Crowley from Washington.
