When Lebanese anti-Hezbollah editor and documentary filmmaker Lokman Slim did not return home after visiting a friend in a rural village on Wednesday night, his sister Rasha had a bad feeling. His brother was increasingly concerned about his fate, even though he predicted last year that if anything were to happen to him, Hezbollah, the Shiite Islamic militant group whose political party Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc is highly influential in the Lebanese parliament, would have “total responsibility for what happened and what can happen. “
Rasha al-Ameer posted urgent messages on Facebook and Twitter at dawn, including one in which she said she had lost contact with her brother. “My brother Lokman Slim left Niha from the south 6 hours ago on his way to Beirut and he has not yet returned,” she wrote. “His phone is not answered. Anyone who knows about it can contact me. ”A few hours later, the police found his body in his car with two fatal bullet holes in his skull.
Friends of Hezbollah’s outspoken critic initially assumed he was kidnapped, worried about the growing threats after a recent television appearance in which he criticized the drastic political situation in Lebanon and called for action to form a new government. Slim, 59, recently widened his criticism, stating in Arab News that “Lebanon’s claim of neutrality today, despite its importance, remains inapplicable in light of Hezbollah’s dominance over the country and the government.”
Lebanon’s acting prime minister, Saad Hariri, condemned Slim’s murder, and the country’s interior minister, Mohammed Fahmi, called it “horrible”.
Bassem Sabeh, a former lawmaker, told Arab News that the assassination was a “direct message to all activists, writers and politicians in the Shiite community, who are mobilizing and expressing their ideas outside of Hezbollah’s political orbit.”
Slim, who studied in France, has been described in Lebanese reports as Hezbollah’s “most prominent and ferocious” opponent “which has made him vulnerable to accusations and threats from the party and its supporters on other occasions”.
His sister Rasha told reporters on Thursday that she found out what happened to Slim through a news alert while she was at the police station to report him for the disappearance. “What a great loss. And they lost a noble enemy too … It is rare for anyone to argue with them and live among them with respect, “she said. “Killing is the only language they are fluent in.”
The police have yet to attribute the journalist’s murder to anyone.