Lokman Slim ‘may have been tortured’ before he was assassinated: Family

Prominent Lebanese activist and Hezbollah critic Lokman Slim “may have been tortured” before he was assassinated, his sister told Al Arabiya on Friday, one day after her brother was found shot dead.

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“The [coroner’s report] I received says that there were six bullets in his body, and that he was bleeding, and it appears they may have tortured him before killing him,” Rasha al-Ameer said.

She also described the report as “very basic,” adding that the family had requested the report in order to be allowed to move the corpse from a morgue in the Sidon public hospital to a morgue at a private hospital in Beirut, where Slim’s family lives.

“We’ve requested from a pathologist [an autopsy] to get additional information on what he thinks happened, and the time of death,” his sister added.

Rasha, the sister of Lokman Slim, a prominent Lebanese Shi'ite critic of Iran-backed Hezbollah who was found killed, talks on the phone in Beirut. (Reuters)

As of Friday, no one from the investigative team or authorities had contacted the family to provide more information, al-Ameer revealed to Al Arabiya.

The body of 58-year-old Slim, a longtime Shia political activist and researcher, was slumped over on the passenger seat with multiple wounds from gunshots fired at close range, according to security and forensic officials.

He was reported missing by his family late Wednesday night into Thursday morning after he visited a friend’s house in a village in Lebanon’s southern region, which is heavily controlled by the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Slim's family hinted on Thursday that the extremist group was behind the killing, according to the Associated Press.

“He was carrying the weight of this country on his shoulder,” his sister Rasha al-Ameer told reporters at their home after the news of the killing broke. She said she has no faith in local investigations and that the family would carry out its own private forensic probe.

“Up until today in the history of Lebanon, all investigations have led to a dead end,” she told reporters. His wife, Monika Borgmann, standing next to al-Ameer, called for an international probe. “This killer has to be punished,” Borgmann said.

Al-Ameer hinted that Hezbollah was behind the killing, without naming the group, adding that it is known who controls the area where her brother was found dead. “Killing for them is a habit," she said. Hezbollah and its allies dominate the area in southern Lebanon.

With the Associated Press

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