BEIRUT — BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese pop star turned Islamist militant who gave up this month after 12 years on the run, he appeared in a Beirut court for the first time on Tuesday.
Fadel Shaker has been hiding in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Hilweh since bloody street clashes broke out between Sunni Muslim militants and the Lebanese army in June 2013 in the coastal city of Sidon.
He was tried in absentia and sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2020 for supporting a “terrorist group.”
As part of the deal that convinced Shaker to turn himself in, the convictions he received while on the run would be overturned and he would be questioned in preparation for trial on new charges of crimes against the armed forces. Tuesday's court appearance was a preliminary examination.
During the 2013 shootout between hardliners Sunni cleric Sheikh Ahmad al-Assir and the Lebanese army, which killed at least 18 soldiers, Shaker appeared in a video uploaded to YouTube in which he called his enemies pigs and dogs and taunted the military, saying: “We have two rotting corpses that we stole from you yesterday,” an apparent reference to the slain soldiers.
Shaker became a pop star throughout the Arab world with a hit song in 2002. Nearly 10 years later, he came under the influence of al-Athir and shocked fans by appearing next to the cleric at rallies and later declaring that he was giving up singing to become closer to God.
In recent years, he has returned to releasing music periodically, including several singles this year. In July, Shaker and his son Mohammed released a new song that has received more than 127 million views on YouTube.
