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Former Lebanese minister sentenced to 13 years in hard labor

Xinhua, April 8, 2016 Adjust font size:

Former Lebanese information minister Michel Samaha was sentenced on Friday by a military cassation court to 13 years in jail with hard labor over terrorism-related charges.

Samaha, who had been sentenced in May 2015 to four and a half years in prison, was transferred to the Rihanieh jail that is under the jurisdiction of the ministry of defense.

The verdict of the cassation court cannot be appealed and the years that Samaha already served will be deducted from the new sentence.

Samaha, 67, was arrested in August 2012 and charged with attempting to carry out "terrorist acts" over allegations that he and Syrian security services chief Ali Mamluk transported explosives and planned attacks and assassinations of political and religious figures in Lebanon.

Samaha was sentenced in May 2015, but one month later the Military Court of Cassation nullified the verdict and ordered a retrial. In January this year, he was released on bail from prison under a controversial ruling. Endit