offenses, and states that "[n]o order or instruction of any public authority, civilian, military or other, may be invoked to justify an enforced disappearance. Any person receiving such an order or instruction shall have the right and duty not to obey it." The declaration also describes the grave consequences of enforced disappearances:

Such act of enforced disappearance places the persons subjected thereto outside the protection of
the law and inflicts severe suffering on them and their families. It constitutes a violation of the rules
of international law guaranteeing, inter alia, the right to recognition as a person before the law, the
right to liberty and security of the person and the right not to be subjected to torture and other cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It also violates or constitutes a grave threat to the
right to life."

THE METHODOLOGY OF ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES IN LEBANON

"No one dares to say anything. The Syrians feel free to do what they want here, and no one can
interfere."

-Palestinian resident of Tripoli, Lebanon, August 1996.

There is a clear pattern to the method of "disappearances" in Lebanon in the cases that Human Rights Watch has documented and examined. First, individuals are seized by Syrian intelligence operatives, usually dressed in plainclothes, sometimes with the participation of their Lebanese counterparts. No written arrest or detention orders are produced at the time of detention. Second, families experience severe suffering following these state-sanctioned abductions because Lebanese and Syrian authorities do not officially provide information about the detention, fate, or whereabouts of the "disappeared." Third, most victims in cases investigated by Human Rights Watch were tortured while in custody in Syrian detention facilities in Lebanon or while in detention in Syria. In some cases documented by Human Rights Watch, the "disappeared" have been pressured by high-ranking Syrian officers to collaborate with Syrian intelligence in Lebanon.

Apprehension and Irregular Arrest by State Agents

Human Rights Watch has identified two types of enforced disappearances in Lebanon: those that appear to be carried out solely by Syrian agents, and those in which Lebanese security forces have participated in the handover of individuals to the Syrians. One Lebanese citizen, who requested anonymity, "disappeared" in late 1993. He described what happened when two Lebanese and one Syrian, all in civilian clothes, arrived at his home in Beirut just after midnight:

One of the Lebanese asked my name, then put a .38 [caliber revolver] to my head and said that they
were security. The other one had an AK-47 [machine gun]. I asked for written orders, but they
showed me nothing.

He was blindfolded, his hands cuffed, and was taken away in his pajamas. "They put me in the back seat of a car and told me to keep my head down. We drove for about seven minutes, arrived at a building, and went up five flights of stairs. After this, I was in Syrian hands," he said. His blindfold was removed. He was surrounded by Syrians in

plainclothes, who moved him to Syrian intelligence headquarters in Beirut, under the command of Col. Rustom Ghazali, located on Sadat Street in the Ramlet al-Baida section of west Beirut, near the Beau Rivage Hotel (an area also known as Beau Rivage). Col. Rustom Ghazali has long been identified as the head of Syrian intelligence in Beirut. This individual, who described having been interrogated and tortured in Beau Rivage, was held in Syrian custody in Lebanon for eight days, during which time his family and lawyer were unable to ascertain his whereabouts.

Gabi 'Aql Karam: "Disappeared" in January 1997

More recently, two men in plainclothes knocked at the door of the home of the mother of Gabi 'Aql Karam in the Sinn al-Fil neighborhood of Beirut, looking for Karam. Two armed Lebanese soldiers remained outside. It was the morning of January 6, 1997. Karam was asleep and his mother woke him up. According to a written complaint filed by Muhamed Mugraby, Karam's lawyer, the two men, who identified themselves as members of Military Intelligence, asked Karam to accompany them to their headquarters so that he could be questioned. They added that Karam had committed no offense and would be returned later that day. Karam was taken to Lebanese Ministry of Defense headquarters in Yarzeh. After Karam was not returned that day, or on the two following days, his mother went to Yarzeh to inquire about him. She was reportedly told by a soldier. "You can't see him. Bring his clothes for him." When she returned the next morning with clothing, she was informed that Karam was no longer at the facility and was provided no information about his whereabouts. Karam had "disappeared." It was learned later, after Karam's release, that Lebanese authorities had turned him over to the Syrians on January 7. He was first moved from Yarzeh to Hazmiyeh, on the outskirts of Beirut, where a joint Syrian-Lebanese intelligence force is based and maintains detention facilities. From there, he was transported to the Palestine Branch of Military Intelligence in Damascus, where he was held incommunicado until March 27, 1997.

Karam was turned over to Lebanese authorities upon re-entering Lebanon and, according to his lawyer, was held in Lebanese custody at the Lebanese army garrison in Ablah in the Beqaa' valley for one week and then released on April 3, 1997.10 There was no official acknowledgment of Karam's detention by Lebanese or Syrian authorities, and there was no written reply to the abduction and unlawful detention complaint filed by Karam's lawyer on March 12, 1997 with Lebanon's chief public prosecutor Adnan Addoum." Karam reportedly is in poor health, is taking pain-killing medication, and is in need of medical attention.

Karam also suffered through the seven-year "disappearance" of his wife, Hala Haj, who was born in 1957. She was abducted in Beirut on January 12, 1990, near the Barbir Hospital crossing point. It was assumed for many years that she was in Syrian custody, but no one knew for certain. During his incommunicado detention in Syria in 1994, Gabi Karam thought that he heard his wife's voice, lawyer Muhamed Mugraby told Human Rights Watch. Hala

'Karam, who was born in 1958 and is the father of three children, was last detained on December 25, 1993 by Lebanese Army intelligence and was transferred to Syria on January 4, 1994, where he was held incommunicado at the Palestine Branch of Military Intelligence, one of Syria's internal security forces. He was returned to Lebanon on February 14, 1994, and was indicted by the military court in Beirut the next day, along with sixteen other defendants, in the "George Haddad" case, in which all the defendants were accused of making contact with enemy agents. The indictment noted Karam's date of arrest as February 14, 1994, omitting the time that he had been in Syrian custody. Karam was sentenced on July 9, 1994, to three years imprisonment with hard labor for "contacting enemy [Israeli] agents and instigating contacts with such agents," according to his lawyer. On appeal, his sentence was reduced on December 1, 1994, to eighteen months, which he served. He was tortured in Syria and Lebanon, his lawyer told Human Rights Watch.

"See Appendix B of this report for a copy of the complaint in its original Arabic, and in English translation. Human Rights Watch/Middle East

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Haj was finally released from Syrian custody on December 28, 1996, when she was sent back to Lebanon and transferred to the custody of the Lebanese military. She was released on January 20, 1997-while her husband Gabi was still "disappeared"- and currently faces charges before the military court for alleged "contacts with agents of the enemy," according to Mugraby. Hala Haj reportedly was tortured repeatedly during her long years in custody in Syria and required five surgical procedures while she was in Syria. These included three surgeries to stop internal bleeding, and two to remove infected tissue from the area around her nose. Her left retina was also damaged, seriously impairing the vision in her left eye. As a result of injuries that Haj sustained, she also suffers from hearing problems and is in need of medical attention, Human Rights Watch learned.

Magi 'Aql Karam: "Disappeared" in March 1997

In contrast to the cases described above, Syrian agents in Lebanon have also taken individuals into custody on their own. Gabi Karam's sister Magi 'Aql Karam was detained and "disappeared" in March 1997, three months after her brother's "disappearance." Magi Karam, who was born in 1953, lives with her husband and six children in the Beqaa' valley. According to the written complaint filed by her lawyer Muhamed Mugraby, Magi Karam reported to Syrian security forces in Chtoura, in the Beqaa', on March 1, 1997, after she was summoned there for questioning about an unspecified matter. Karam, who had previously been arrested and tortured, reportedly was terrified."2 Mugraby filed a written complaint of unlawful detention with public prosecutor Adnan Addoum on March 15, 1997." He received no written reply to this complaint, and there is no evidence that Lebanese authorities began an investigation of this "disappearance." Magi Karam was released from Syrian custody on March 27, 1997. After her release, it was learned that she had been held incommunicado in the Palestine Branch of Military Intelligence in Damascus.

Bashir al-Khatib: "Disappeared" in July 1996

In another case, Bashir al-Khatib, who was born in 1957 and is the father of four children, was apprehended in the northern city of Tripoli by a high-ranking officer in the Syrian security forces on or about July 8, 1996, according to information obtained by Human Rights Watch in Lebanon from reliable sources. 14 Al-Khatib had been visited the day before by Syrian security forces, who asked him questions and took notes. "He didn't run away, because he thought that it was nothing," one source reported. After his "disappearance," Syrian security forces in Tripoli admitted informally that al-Khatib was in their custody in the city, would be questioned for a few days, and then would be released. Several days later, the Syrians said that he had been moved from Tripoli to 'Anjar (the Syrian detention facility near the Lebanese-Syrian border), and "probably was in Damascus."15 Human Rights Watch subsequently confirmed that al-Khatib was in Syria, and was being held in Damascus, in the Palestine Branch

12 Magi Karam was last arrested in Lebanon on January 28, 1994 by Lebanese Army intelligence. She was reportedly tortured and mistreated at Ministry of Defense headquarters in Yarzeh, and held there for some time in a bathroom that was in active use. She was one of the defendants, along with her brother and fifteen others, in the George Haddad case (see footnote above), and was sentenced to one year in prison for "contacts with agents of the enemy [Israel]," which was reduced on appeal to nine months, according to her lawyer. During her detention, she became ill. She still suffers from numerous medical ailments and is under medical attention, according to her lawyer.

13 See Appendix C for a copy of the complaint in its Arabic original and in English translation.

14 Al-Khatib had only recently regained his freedom prior to this abduction. According to information obtained by Human Rights Watch, he was imprisoned inside Israel in January 1992, after he was apprehended in south Lebanon near the border with the Israeli-occupied zone. He was released by the Israelis and returned to Lebanon in early 1996.

15 Interviews, Beirut, August 1996. See "Torture in Syrian Custody," below, for additional information about 'Anjar.

Human Rights Watch/Middle East

detention center of Military Intelligence," one of Syria's internal security forces. There was no official acknowledgment of his whereabouts, however. Letters sent by Human Rights Watch to Lebanese and Syrian authorities in March 1997, asking for confirmation that al-Khatib was in Syrian custody, went unanswered.

In 1995 and 1996, Syrian intelligences forces also detained Palestinian residents of Lebanon who subsequently "disappeared.” Palestinians who live in Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in Tripoli told Human Rights Watch in August 1996 that Palestinians from the camp had recently been detained and "disappeared," although sources were reluctant to consent to the publication of names and other identifying details. According to one resident:

Syrian mukhabarat (intelligence agents) picked people up near the Corniche. It started one month
ago. They also took a man two months ago from his uncle's house [in the camp]. No one know why.
No one dares to say anything. The Syrians feel free to do what they want here, and no one can
interfere.

Another resident, in a separate interview, said this: "Last week, not far from here, Syrian mukhabarat stopped a car on the Corniche and took [a man in his fifties with kidney problems]. They put him in the trunk. He was a member of the pro-Iraqi Ba'th party but had not been active for a long time. He was in bad health."

A rumor was spread that one of the Palestinians who "disappeared" in 1996 was suspected of collaborating with Israel, specifically with the Mossad in Greece. "This is ridiculous," a source in the camp said. "He never left this camp. He does not even have a travel document. This kind of an [allegation] makes people especially afraid to get involved [in the case]."

Another resident of the camp recounted the "disappearance" in October 1995 of a Palestinian man in his forties known as Abu Maher. Syrian security forces in plainclothes "came to his house. They said that they wanted to talk to him outside for five minutes. They took him, and no one knows where he is," he said."

Unacknowledged Detention

Once individuals are in Syrian custody, there is no official acknowledgment of the detention or official confirmation of their whereabouts. Families are not notified officially about the arrest and whereabouts of their relatives, and Syrian authorities maintain a wall of official silence about non-Syrian nationals in their custody. There was, for example, no reply by Syrian President Hafez al-Asad to a letter that Human Rights Watch sent to him in November 1996, requesting the names of all non-Syrians in Syrian custody. The consequences of this silence for families in Lebanon, and elsewhere in the Arab world, are devastating, as the following four cases indicate.

Abdallah Diab Hussein al-Razayneh: "Disappeared" in 1984

Abdallah Diab Hussein al-Razayneh, a forty-seven-year-old Palestinian from Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, was reportedly taken into custody by Syrian security forces in 1984 on the Lebanese-Syrian border. AlRazayneh's wife Fatimeh, who lives with their six children in Jabaliya camp, had no contact with or news about her husband's whereabouts since 1984 and believed that he was dead. But information from a prisoner who was released in 1996 gave the family hope that he is still alive.

According to the prisoner, al-Razayneh was held in Mezze military prison in Damascus from 1984 until 1992, first in Section 248 and then in Section 235 of that facility. Prisoners at Mezze heard that in October 1992 al

16 The name Palestine Branch is misleading, because over the last two decades many Lebanese and Syrians, as well as Palestinians, have been held there incommunicado and tortured.

17 Interviews, Tripoli, August 1996.

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Razayneh was transferred from Mezze to Sednaya prison." Human Rights Watch wrote to President Asad on November 6, 1996, requesting that Syrian authorities provide information about al-Razayneh's whereabouts. We asked the Syrian government to respond to reports that he had been held in Mezze prison for eight years, and we inquired about his current whereabouts and the reasons for his continuing detention. The letter was not answered.

Rushdi Rashed Hamdan Shehab: "Disappeared" in 1987

Rushdi Rashed Hamdan Shehab, a Palestinian, "disappeared" in Sidon, Lebanon, in October 1987. "At ten in the morning, he left his car with a mechanic at a gas station, saying that he would return in the evening to pick it up," his brother told Human Rights Watch." Shehab, the father of three who was forty-two years old at the time, never returned that evening for his car. And he was never seen again in Lebanon. "I went to Jordan in the summer of 1988. We heard stories about his disappearance, and someone told us that he was in Syria. I went to Damascus with his wife, but there was no real news," his brother said. There were rumors that Shehab, who was a member of Yasir Arafat's Fateh, had been abducted, variously, by rival Palestinian factions led by Abu Nidal or Abu Musa, but the family received no concrete information. According to his brother, Shehab had left Lebanon in 1982, at the time that PLO fighters were evacuated in the wake of the Israeli invasion, and relocated to Syria. He was based in Syria until 1987, traveling freely between there and Lebanon numerous times without any problems from Syrian authorities.

After being "disappeared" for almost ten years, the family had given up hope that Shehab was still alive. But in early April 1997, news reached a cousin in Jordan that Shehab had been seen alive and was being held in Syria's infamous Tadmor prison.20 The information came from a Palestinian prisoner who had been released in August 1995, after spending over nineteen years in incommunicado detention in Syria.

Boutros Khawand: "Disappeared" in 1992

Boutros Khawand, a prominent member of the political bureau of the Phalange party, "disappeared" on September 15, 1992, about a half-mile from his home in Sinn al-Fil in East Beirut, an area under the control of the Syrian army. Khawand's car was intercepted by a group of about two dozen men, dressed in civilian clothes but wearing army-issue boots, who arrived in a red van and two BMW automobiles. Khawand's son Fadi, who was in the house at the time of the abduction, made the following written statement:

On that day, Tuesday, September 15, 1992, my father left the house at 9:00 o'clock in the morning
as usual. He got in his car, a red Opel, and drove toward the main street. Minutes later, I heard gun
shots, I ran out of the house to investigate. I found my father's car parked in the middle of the road
with the driver's side door wide open, and my father nowhere to be found.

One witness informed me that she observed two cars and a van surrounding my father's car. She
further stated that the kidnappers ran toward my father, held him at gunpoint, lifted him from the

18 Telephone interviews, Gaza Strip, October 1996.

19 Telephone interview, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, April 1997.

20 Abuses at Tadmor prison documented by Human Rights Watch include prolonged incommunicado detention, torture, and executions following unfair, summary trials in military field courts. Some of the victims of execution and others who died in custody at Tadmor are buried in mass graves. For additional information about Tadmor prison, see Human Rights Watch/Middle East, "Syria's Tadmor Prison: Dissent Still Hostage to a Legacy of Terror," A Human Rights Watch Short Report, vol. 8, no.2, April 1996.