When Lebanese anti-Hezbollah publisher and documentary maker Lokman Slim did not return home after visiting a friend in a rural village on Wednesday evening, his sister Rasha had a really bad feeling. Her brother became increasingly concerned about his fate, even last year predicting that if anything happened to him, Hezbollah, the Shia Islamist militant group whose loyalty to the Resistance Bloc political party is highly influential in the Lebanese parliament, ‘the took full responsibility for what happened and what could happen. “
Rasha al-Ameer posted urgent messages on Facebook and Twitter at dawn, including one saying she had lost touch with her brother. “My brother Lokman Slim left Niha from the south six hours ago on his way to Beirut, and he hasn’t returned yet,” she wrote. His phone isn’t answered. Anyone who knows anything about him can please contact me. A few hours later, police found his body in his car with two deadly bullet holes in his skull.
Friends of the outspoken Hezbollah critic had initially assumed he had been kidnapped, concerned about the growing threats following a recent television appearance criticizing the drastic political situation in Lebanon and calling for action to form a new government. Slim, 59, had recently reinforced his criticism by asserting to Arab News that “the claim to Lebanon’s neutrality today, despite its importance, is unenforceable in the face of Hezbollah’s dominance over the country and the government.”
Lebanon’s acting prime minister, Saad Hariri, condemned Slim’s murder, and Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi called it “horrific.”
Bassem Sabeh, a former lawmaker, told Arab News that the murder was a “direct message to all activists, writers and politicians from the Shia community, who are mobilizing and expressing their ideas outside of Hezbollah’s political path”.
Slim, who studied in France, has been described in Lebanese news reports as the “most prominent and fiercest” opponent of Hezbollah, “leaving him vulnerable to accusations and threats from the party and its supporters at other times.”
His sister Rasha told reporters on Thursday that she found out through a news alert what happened to Slim while she was at the police station to report him missing. “What a great loss. And they also lost a noble enemy … It is rare for anyone to argue with them and live among them with respect, ”she said. “Murder is the only language they speak fluently.”
The police have not yet attributed the murder of the journalist to anyone.