Last update - 00:00 05/10/2007
Lebanon issues arrest warrant for leader of Fatah al-Islam group
By DPA
Lebanon said on Friday it has issued an arrest warrant for the leader of the al-Qaeda-inspired Islamist militia Fatah al-Islam, whose fighters were engaged in a deadly 15-week battle with Lebanese soldiers in the north of the country.
Judge Ghassan Oweidat said the warrant has been issued against Palestinian Shaker al-Abssi, whose fate remains unknown, and 36 other fugitive militants.
Almost 400 people were killed, among them an estimated 222 militants and 168 soldiers, until fighting in the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp outside Tripoli ended September 2 after a final assault by the army.
Oweidat said al-Abssi, whose wife last month identified his body in a morgue although DNA tests subsequently determined it was not him, was still alive and probably in hiding in Lebanon.
On Friday, general prosecutor Saeed Mirza charged 20 suspected Fatah al-Islam militants, 17 of them in absentia, with murder and terrorism, a statement by his office said.
They included 16 Palestinians and four Russians, the statement said.
A total of almost 300 members of Fatah al-Islam, including 150 in detention, have been charged since August in connection with the bloodshed which began in northern Lebanon on May 20.