The Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Regional Office at Amnesty International, Lynn Maalouf, urged the Lebanese authorities to conduct a transparent, impartial, and independent investigation into the killing of Loukmane Slim. She called for the results to be publicly announced and for the perpetrators to be swiftly brought to justice.
In a statement today regarding the news of the killing of Lebanese thinker and activist Loukmane Slim, Maalouf noted that he "was at the forefront of the struggle against impunity in post-war Lebanon," emphasizing that he strongly advocated for the right of families of the missing and the forcibly disappeared to obtain justice and reveal the truth. He worked alongside families' associations and a number of other organizations and activists who had the courage to challenge the prevailing culture of impunity in Lebanon.
Maalouf held the Lebanese state ultimately responsible for Loukmane Slim's death, considering him a victim of this pattern of impunity that has persisted for decades, which has left crimes against activists, journalists, and intellectuals, both in the past and present, unpunished. She expressed that Slim's horrific killing raises serious concerns about a return to targeted killings, noting that fears increase as the state fails to achieve any justice in earlier horrifying and similar cases. She added that today marks six months since the explosion that shocked the residents of Beirut and took its soul without accountability for anyone involved so far.
The Lebanese judiciary has opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the killing of activist Loukmane Slim, whose body was discovered inside a rented car in Southern Lebanon, between the towns of Adloun and Taffahata, after his sister, Rasha Al-Ameer, reported him missing. Slim's body was transferred to the Sidon Governmental Hospital after the forensic doctor examined it and found that it sustained five gunshot wounds: four to the head and one to the back.
