The Egyptian ambassador in Beirut has been instructed to follow up on the lynching of an Egyptian citizen last week, an Egyptian diplomatic source told Al-Masry Al-Youm.
Mohamed Salim Massalem, a 38-year-old Egyptian citizen, was murdered and his body mutilated last Thursday in the Lebanese village of Katramaya after he was accused of a quadruple homicide.
The diplomatic source told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the ambassador contacted Lebanese officials expressing his disgust over Massalem’s murder, which the ambassador described as inconsistent with the special relationship between the Egyptian and Lebanese people.
The Egyptian ambassador recounted details of the killing to Lebanese authorities based on Lebanese media reports, said the source, adding that the ambassador was concerned by Lebanese security officials’ negligence in transporting the Egyptian citizen to the village for the investigation into four murders, which had occurred less than 24 hours earlier.
In a new development, a well-informed Lebanese security source has said that tests have matched the DNA of the four victims with that found on a T-shirt and knife retrieved from the home of the lynched Egyptian. The source noted that this preliminary evidence implicates the Egyptian in the killings, but noted that it’s still too early to issue an official statement.
The security source added that Lebanese police arrested a number of suspects after the murders, indicating that Massalem had been previously suspected of sexually assaulting a girl in the village. According to the source, investigations showed that Massalem was living with his Lebanese mother who was the second-wife of a Lebanese citizen from the area, and a neighbor of the murdered family.
The source also said that Massalem had confessed to the murders of the four Lebanese citizens, but investigators remained suspicious of his description and planned to continue the investigation.
The attorney general had requested that the suspect be accompanied to the crime scene to describe the murders, but angry villagers used the opportunity to attack the police officers, destroy their vehicles, and then stab Massalem. After the police transported him to the hospital, the angry mob attacked the hospital and killed Massalem, mutilated and skinned his body, and hung it from an electric pole in the middle of the village, amid celebratory screams from the town’s women.
Lebanese Interior Minister Ziad Barud has requested that an investigation be conducted immediately into the police’s poor judgment of the situation so that those found negligent could be punished.
Video clips of the incident played on local Lebanese television stations show hundreds of villagers confronting the police, then kidnapping Massalem, and stripping him of his clothes with the exception of his underwear. Footage then show him being hit until he dies in the presence of the policemen, who stand nearby, unable to intervene.
The Lebanese Minister of Justice Ibrahim Najjar stated, “No matter how badly the residents of the town were psychologically traumatized, nothing in the world can justify a collective reaction like happened.”
In Egypt, a number of legal scholars described the crime as “repugnant.” Nasser Amin, director of the Arabic Center for an Independent Judiciary, said that the Lebanese government is responsible for what happened and that it must ensure that all Salim’s killers be brought forth before the courts.
Similarly, Nagid el-Barai, a legal activist, demanded that the Egyptian Foreign Ministry closely follow the investigations to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
