Fadel Shaker Sentenced to 5 Years in Jail for 'Harming Lebanese Ties with Fraternal Arab Country'

Pop star turned fugitive Fadel Shaker was sentenced on Friday to five years in prison on charges of sectarian incitement, reported the National News Agency.

He was also charged with “harming Lebanon's ties with a fraternal Arab country” during an interview he conducted in the past few years.

The name of the country was not disclosed.

The singer was also ordered to pay a fine of LL500,000.

He was stripped of his civil rights and a warrant has been issued for his arrest, added NNA.

Responding to the sentence, Shaker said: “The fraternal country that was referred to is the same one whose president and head of intelligence sent an agent to bomb Lebanon.”

He made his remark in a reference to former Minister Michel Samaha, who was arrested n 2012 after being caught red-handed while smuggling explosives from Syria to Lebanon to carry out attacks in the country.

He was sentenced to four-and-half years in jail in May 2015, but in June the Cassation Court nullified the verdict and ordered a retrial. He was released on bail in January.

Though he grew to become one of the Arab world's most famous singers, Shaker suffered through a miserable childhood of poverty, which a onetime musician friend says helped lead him down a dark path later in life.

Around four years ago, he became affiliated with extremist Salafist movements linked to cleric Ahmed al-Asir, whose supporters waged deadly clashes with the army in the Abra area of the southern city of Sidon in 2013.

Asir was arrested last year.

Now in his mid-forties, Shaker was born to a Palestinian mother and Lebanese father.

Born Fadel Shmandur, he began his career as a popular wedding singer who performed from the rooftops of the Ain el-Hilweh camp, an over-crowded and hopeless place.

In his prime, Shaker sang love songs that were instant region-wide hits. He released his first album in the late nineties, and continued to perform until 2011.

M.T.

Y.R.