LEBANON: 5 BROTHERS SENTENCED TO DEATH OVER 2007 KILLINGS

January 9, 2015: Lebanon’s judiciary sentenced five brothers from the Shamas family to death in abstentia over the 2007 murders of Ziad Qabalan and child Ziad Ghandour.
Another three people in custody were sentenced to jail terms ranging from two to 10 years over involvement in the killings.
The Judicial Council handed down the sentences to five siblings from the Shamas family called Mohammad, Shehadeh, Abdallah, Abbas and Ali, who were charged with kidnapping and murdering the two victims.
The council published a full story about the crime, saying it was organized by the five brothers in retaliation for the murder of Adnan Shamas, a relative of the convicts, during clashes at Beirut Arab University earlier that year.
Shamas was killed in the brief clashes that erupted at BAU and its surroundings on Jan. 25, 2007, which took on a sectarian nature. (Sources: The Daily Star, 09/01/2015)