Hujeiri says his arrest will scupper hostage negotiations

ARSAL, Lebanon: Sheikh Mustafa Hujeiri, who was charged Tuesday with belonging to the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, said Wednesday that the arrest warrant would ruin efforts to obtain the release of 27 soldiers and policemen being held hostage by extremist groups outside his hometown of Arsal. Hujeiri made the comments during a news conference that was held in his mosque in Arsal, saying he would turn himself in once a fair judicial system was established in Lebanon, implying he had no intention of surrendering anytime soon, and decrying the arrest warrant as politically motivated.

A military judge is now seeking the death penalty for the sheikh.

The Salafist sheikh rose to prominence when he became a key intermediary between the Committee of Muslim Scholars and the Nusra Front and ISIS over the Arsal hostages.

“Am I now a terrorist because I supported the Syrian revolution since it started?” Hujeiri asked.

“[Because] I made it a lost opportunity for those who wanted to tamper with Lebanon’s security and for those who wanted to [destroy] Arsal and its residents? Or because I helped protect the soldiers and security forces and release some of them?” he asked.

Hujeiri played a key role in helping families visit their abducted relatives last month. He accompanied the family of George Khoury to the outskirts of Arsal to meet the abducted soldier and is said to have done the same for Rana Fliti, the wife of captured soldier Ali Bazzal.

He is also believed to have played an important role in facilitating the release of seven hostages held by the Nusra Front. Two policemen were freed Aug. 17, and four soldiers and a policeman were released Aug. 30.

But with the issuing of the arrest warrant, Hujeiri said there were no longer any assurances for the hostages’ safety: “There is a possibility that a huge danger [looms] over them.”

Hujeiri said he had suspended mediation efforts after the Lebanese Army closed off all supply routes leading from the northeastern border town to the area’s outskirts, where there are farmlands and caves that the militants are believed to be hiding out in.

He also pointed to the Lebanese government’s refusal five days earlier to free militant Imad Ahmad Jomaa, whose arrest sparked five days of heavy clashes in Arsal in August, during which the security personnel were seized.

The sheikh said the militants had given him a one-week deadline to secure the release of Jomaa, and he was forced to withdraw from negotiations when the government said it would not comply.

The militants have also demanded an exchange for a number of Islamists being held in Roumieh Prison – many of whom have been there for years without trial – an issue the Lebanese government has dragged its feet on.

“Our military sons deserve the best. Don’t be stingy with them, even if the price is the release of those unfairly imprisoned in Roumieh Prison,” he said.

“If the Nusra Front is a terrorist organization then you should hold Walid Jumblatt accountable, because he considered it to be a faction of the Syrian revolution,” Hujeiri said, referring to comments made by the Progressive Socialist Party leader to OTV Tuesday night that the Nusra Front was not a terrorist group.

The sheikh also called on the Lebanese Army “to treat all the Lebanese equally,” adding that he considered Hezbollah to have succeeded in exploiting the Army.

“The judicial system should have from the start directed its warrants at those killing Lebanese and Syrians,” Hujeiri said.

He also criticized the judiciary’s dealing with his son: “Where was the judicial system when my 17-year-old son was captured or kidnapped at an Army checkpoint and then imprisoned?”