By Kyle Stucker — .seacoastonline.com — WASHINGTON — Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., decried Lebanon’s ongoing detention of Dover restaurant owner Amer Fakhoury Wednesday, calling the three-month detention both “illegal” and suggesting his treatment could constitute a human rights violation. Shaheen made the comments during a U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing that involved Lebanon and Iraq. “I think this is a very serious situation that has not been taken seriously by officials of the Lebanese government and they need to be on notice that we are looking very carefully and very closely at what they are doing,” said Shaheen. Going further, Shaheen outlined her office is working with government departments to do “everything we can” to ensure the Lebanese-American is returned home safely.

Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar and other Middle Eastern outlets have described Fakhoury, 57, the owner of Little Lebanon To Go in downtown Dover, as the “butcher of Khiam.” The reports have alleged Fakhoury tortured inmates and committed other human rights violations while working as a senior warden at Khiam Prison in southern Lebanon in the 1980s and ’90s. Fakhoury’s family and his attorney, Celine Atallah, have denied the claims. Lebanese officials detained Fakhoury, on Sept. 12, eight days after he and his wife, Michelle, arrived in Lebanon for a vacation and to visit family there for the first time in nearly two decades. Amer and Michelle Fakhoury planned a temporary closure of Little Lebanon To Go while they visited Lebanon and other countries on their vacation. The restaurant remains closed. Shaheen said Wednesday that Fakhoury is currently in “very critical” health due to mistreatment, rib fractures, various infections, a 40-pound weight loss and an aggressive form of lymphoma that has developed since he’s been detained “without charge” or due process. Shaheen entered a two-page document into the Senate record Wednesday that she said “clearly indicate(s) that (Fakhoury) is not the individual that the Lebanese and Hezbollah-linked papers allege him to be.”

The document, written by Atallah on Wednesday, states Fakhoury was a member of the Israel-backed Southern Lebanese Army and was assigned to Khiam Prison from 1989 to 1996. Atallah claims in the document, contrary to what Lebanese papers have described, that Fakhoury never was involved in the interrogation or torture of prisoners. The document also claims Fakhoury fled Lebanon in 2001, through Israel and eventually to the U.S., because of credible death threats he and other SLA received after Israeli ended its occupation of Lebanon in 2000. Fakhoury’s daughters have denied the assertion their father was a senior warden at Khiam Prison. The document also claims a 1996 collaboration charge and conviction against Fakhoury for his role at Khiam Prison was officially dismissed in Lebanon in 2018. “As such, under Lebanese law, he cannot be charged with this crime again,” Atallah wrote in the document. “Despite all of the investigations and the coverage of Khiam Prison, no other charges or accusations, official or unofficial, were lodged against Amer.”

The document also claims Fakhoury decided to return to Lebanon after receiving in August 2018 official written confirmation from the Lebanese government there were no accusations against him in Lebanon, and after a senior Ministry of Foreign Affairs official encouraged Fakhoury, during an event in Boston in September 2018, to “come back to Lebanon.” “The U.S. Government as well as Amer’s lawyers have spoken with Lebanese officials at the highest levels. These officials freely admit that ‘the file is empty,’” Atallah wrote in an excerpt of the document. Shaheen said Lebanon “should be subject to sanctions” if Fakhoury were to die in the custody of Lebanese officials. Those sanctions, Shaheen said, should include ones that would make any involved officials and their family members ineligible for entry into the United States.

Shaheen’s comments came as Joey Hood, the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Hood, a New Hampshire resident, described himself as someone who loves Little Lebanon To Go while stating his embassy and the State Department are “absolutely making it our highest priority” to secure Fakhoury’s safe release. “Every day the U.S. embassy team in Beirut is working very hard to secure the release of the unjustly detained Amer Fakhoury,” said Hood, adding that U.S. officials visited Fakhoury on Wednesday. Hood also said there are “grave concerns about the process and the way he’s being treated.” “I know that Mr. Fakhoury’s customers miss him, his family misses him and we hope to see him come home very, very soon,” said Hood.