“Lebanon Debate”
The military court interrogated five detainees, whose members were classified as “dangerous agents,” because they were accused of playing roles that paved the way for assassination and bombing operations during the commemoration of the assassination of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in the southern suburb. The most prominent of them was Muhammad Abdullah Saleh, who was accused of carrying out logistical work to implement the plan led by the Ukrainian-Syrian Khaled Al-Aidi, the most dangerous Mossad agent.
Al-Aidi, who was arrested by Hezbollah and managed to escape from one of its prisons in the suburb after the building in which he was held was exposed to Israeli aggression, then took refuge in the Ukrainian embassy in Lebanon, and, according to information, he was able to leave Lebanese territory with the help of a commando force last April.
During Saleh’s interrogation before the court headed by Brigadier General Wassim Fayyad, he talked about how he met the so-called Martin when he applied for a job, and he asked him to meet him in Vienna in mid-March of the year 2024, where it was agreed to establish a company for the Airbnb project after studies prepared by Saleh in this field, and he received bank transfers in return for that, while the large payments came to him “by other means,” which is the digital currency.
Saleh had no doubts about Martin, “I have no experience in security,” he told the court. When he was asked about what he mentioned previously, that he had doubts about the financial transfers, and that Martin told him when he met him, “I don’t know who we are,” Saleh said: “I was subjected to various types of torture during my investigation at Public Security, and I said anything to end it, and all my statements were incorrect.”
Saleh said in that statement, which he denied before the court, that after the Pager operation in September, Martin told him, “Your mission now is to return to Lebanon,” explaining that he returned to Lebanon in September 2024 in order to hold his engagement.
Martin suggested to Saleh to find a warehouse, and he actually rented a warehouse in Naqqash, in which he placed “office furniture, phones, and a motorcycle that he bought from the Corniche al-Mazraa locality,” at the request of Martin, who also requested tools and mercury. As for why he prepared a warehouse to whom it would return, he said: “I was its custodian, and Martin told me that someone would come to Lebanon,” adding that he had bought five telephone lines, and the warehouse needed restoration.
In his clarification, Saleh stated that he had bought the telephone lines and placed them in the warehouse for use by the people who would come for the project, but he had not activated them.
When asked who Abu Ahmed was, Saleh said that Martin called him in September 2024 and informed him that Abu Ahmed would be a representative of the company and wanted to work in the warehouse. “I was in Georgia at the time, and about two days later Martin came back and called me and informed me that Abu Ahmed was not answering his calls, that he had disappeared, and that we had lost a lot of money.”
Saleh continued that he did not know that Abu Ahmed was in Lebanon, and “I later understood that he had come to the warehouse, and I had not met him and did not know his full name.” In response to a question, he said that Martin did not inform him that Abu Ahmed had been arrested, but rather told him that he had disappeared, and that General Security had told him that he had been arrested.
He continued, saying: “Abu Ahmed disappeared in September 2025, and I returned to Lebanon on September 13 of the same year. If I had known that he was arrested, I would not have returned to Lebanon, especially since I have a Brazilian passport.”
Saleh was asked who Yahya was, and he said: “There is no one named Yahya,” and this name is written on the wall of the building, denying that he had received any dead mail or anything from a person called Yahya.
Regarding the total amount of money he received, the accused said that it ranged between 20 and 30 thousand dollars, including travel reservations and “related expenses,” denying that he received any sums of money through dead mail near his house or that he received any box.
In August 2024, Saleh came to Lebanon and stayed in his hometown of Sultan Yacoub. At that time, he did not use his phone in Lebanon, which he had allocated for work, denying that he and Martin had discussed any topics related to the Islamic Group. He said about Ali Al-Hajj, who was assassinated by Israel, that he was “my cousin, and he was martyred, may God have mercy on him,” and what he knew about Muhammad Dahrouj, “who was also martyred as a bus driver.”
During the interrogation of the accused, Omran Shibli, he stated that the fugitive accused, Ahmed Younis, is his relative, and that he had rented a warehouse in Doha Aramoun to store food supplies, and that he was working as a driver for the latter’s wife while she came to Lebanon. On one occasion, he asked him to take him to Mono Street to get a red Wrangler as a gift for his wife, and that the reason he put his phone on “Flight Mode” was because his wife was calling a lot, and he wanted to surprise her with the car.
Regarding the incident of targeting Zoqaq al-Blat on November 18, where the Jeep was seen at the scene, the accused stated that Younis asked him to go ahead of him to the warehouse to put the Jeep Wrangler, but on the way it broke down. He talked about that when he was with Younes, he received calls from a person named Adam, and Younes asked him to leave the car.
He added that Yunus asked him one time to meet a person in the Jandulin area, where he received a box from him, and because of his insectivism, he opened the box and found in it a bag containing powder, confirming that he did not receive any sums of money from Yunus other than the price of gasoline.
The accused, Ahmed Ghosn, stated that Younis, his relative, used to visit the bakery he owned with a Wrangler, and that he had asked him on one occasion to deliver the car to his friend in the Jounieh area, but that person did not show up, so he asked him to put the car in park with its keys “under the pedal,” so he did.
He added that Younis told him about a raid on a warehouse that he had rented in Doha Aramoun and that it was empty. Then he said that there was a battery for a Wrangler and a welding machine in the warehouse, and that the keys to the warehouse were with the caretaker who lost them, so the locks were changed, and the warehouse keys remained with the accused from September 3 until the 25th, the date of the raid.
As for the accused, Ibrahim Al-Ali, for his part, he reported that the person called Fadi Hadid sent him a message requesting that he search for an importer of carob molasses and shipping companies in exchange for $500. He also asked him to conduct a study on bicycles that his friend intends to buy, so the accused collected pictures of his request and sent him $1,200 in two installments. When he was asked to conduct “a deep psychological examination and interview one of the girls,” he said: “I suspected him.”
Regarding the Wrangler, Al-Ali stated that he brought it during the events from a locality near Golden Beach, and Hadid asked him to transport it to Achrafieh. He gave the showroom owner a thousand dollars and kept for himself two thousand dollars in return.
Regarding what he previously mentioned, that he suspected that Fadi, his friend Adnan, and the girl, Lily, were working for an Israeli security agency, the accused said that Fadi informed him that a person named Adnan would speak to him, “and I had question marks when he offered me to communicate with Lily,” adding that Adnan asked him to buy 3 phones with a different name and put them in the Wrangler, stressing that he did not know the rest of the detainees, and that his wife, Lynn Mustafa, was arrested with him “because they did not find anything against me.”
During interrogation, Lynn Mustafa stated that her accused husband, Ibrahim Al-Ali, brought the Wrangler home and photographed it. When she was asked about what her husband told her, “There is nothing to be afraid of because the Israeli is not asking him for anything dangerous,” she replied: “No, he did not say that, and I am very afraid of the investigation.”
The court decided to adjourn the session until next September, after the end of the judicial recess, and to send a letter to the General Directorate of Public Security to deposit a copy of the entry and exit movements of the accused Saleh.
