A Beirut tribunal has dropped charges against an Israeli collaborator accused of overseeing the torture and killing of captives at a prison facility in southern Lebanon some two decades ago, in a verdict that the Hezbollah resistance movement and rights activists say was issued under pressure from the US. Amer Fakhoury — a dual Lebanese-American national — was accused of murder, attempted murder, kidnapping and torture while presiding over Khiam Prison run by the Israeli-sponsored South Lebanon Army (SLA)militia group — formed by army defectors — during the regime’s 1982-2000 occupation of southern Lebanon.
Widely known as the ‘Butcher of Khiam,’ he fled Lebanon along with hundreds of other SLA members after the Lebanese army, backed by Hezbollah, drove Israel out of the country in 2000.