Terrorist with a Russian passport

Sergei Vysotsky faces execution in Lebanon

In Lebanon, for the first time, a Russian is facing the death penalty. A young man from Russia is accused of terrorist activities on the territory of this Middle Eastern country and is suspected of having connections with armed extremists. Lebanese law provides for capital punishment for such charges. As Vremya Novostei learned, the details of this unprecedented story are still little known even to the authorities and special services of Russia. Our diplomats are quite surprised that they learned about the arrest of their compatriot from local journalists, and not from official sources, as required by protocol.

Details will become clear only today, after the first meeting of the Russian consul in Beirut, Oleg Konovalov, with the local investigator in this case, and also, possibly, with the accused himself. Lebanese Prosecutor General Said Mirza, who coordinates the work of investigators on special cases, has only said so far that the arrested person is 18-year-old Sergei Vladimirovich Vysotsky, known among militants by the nickname Abu Umran. This nickname translates as “father of Umran” and has no special meaning, other than the hint that the person who took it most likely converted to Islam. However, Russian students studying Arabic often take such oriental names for themselves as a joke. And Sergei Vysotsky, according to unconfirmed reports, studied Arabic in the city of Tripoli in northern Lebanon. He was arrested back in September, although, we repeat, the Russian embassy in Beirut found out about this only last weekend.

“The authorities who have detained a certain citizen are obliged to notify the representative office of his country about this. Moreover, they must do this even if there are no agreements on legal assistance and extradition,” Vladimir Cherepanov, press attache of the Russian embassy in Lebanon, told Vremya Novostey. He admitted that “until now the Lebanese have been careful”: “For example, this summer the police station promptly contacted us, reporting a criminal incident and the arrest of certain citizens. A copy of the indictment was even presented. However, they contacted us then by mistake. Those detained turned out to be Belarusians.”

So today, Russian diplomats will at the same time find out the reasons that prevented the Lebanese from informing Moscow on time about the arrest of the young Russian. In addition, it remains to be checked whether he actually has a Russian passport, since in Arab countries Ukrainians or Belarusians and other immigrants from the former USSR are often mistaken for Russians.

Local authorities claim that Russian Sergei Vysotsky was detained while security services were “filtering” people leaving the Nahr al-Barid Palestinian refugee camp besieged by the army in the north of the country. This one of the largest Palestinian camps in Lebanon gained notoriety in May this year when the army tried to neutralize the Fatah al-Islam radical group that had taken refuge there, accused by the authorities of having links with the international terrorist organization Al-Qaeda.

This resulted in a long siege of the camp by government troops that lasted until early September. During this time, according to news agencies, 220 militants and 168 government soldiers were killed, and there were casualties among civilians. Currently, 331 people have been charged in the case of extremists from the Nahr al-Barid camp, of which 150 have been detained. These are not only Lebanese and Palestinians, but also Syrians, Jordanians, and Saudis.

The Lebanese Prosecutor General's Office reported that three more Russians are also wanted, also accused of terrorism: twenty-year-old Taimur Koskov and Aslan Imkudzhaev, as well as a certain Dagestani nicknamed Abu Abdalla. According to Russian interlocutors of Vremya Novostei, information about this, and there is not much of it, needs to be verified. There are suggestions that these people came to Lebanon from Syria. But for what purpose is still unclear, but it is not at all necessary that for participation in jihad, the holy war of Muslims. There are cases when foreign citizens are wanted because border guards do not record the fact of their departure from the country - either their visa has expired or by mistake. That is, there is still hope that not all accused Russians are terrorists.

Elena SUPONINA