WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th March, 2020) US national Amer Fakhoury is returning to the United States to rejoin his family and to receive medical treatment after being held in a Lebanese prison for the past six months, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced in a press release on Thursday.
"American citizen Amer Fakhoury, who has been in detention in Lebanon since September, is returning to the United States where he will be reunited with his family and receive urgent medical treatment," Pompeo said.
Fakhoury was a member of the South Lebanon Army, a militia group that collaborated with the Israeli army during its 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon starting in 1982, according to media reports.
He fled Lebanon when Israel withdrew in 2000 and later migrated to the United States, where he obtained US citizenship.
Fakhoury was arrested when returning to Lebanon last September, despite first receiving assurances that charges had been dropped, according to his lawyer, Celine Atallah.
He reportedly suffers from stage-4 cancer.
