The Beiruter investigates Lebanon’s death penalty debate, combining parliamentary data, Amnesty analysis, and exclusive testimonies from Roumieh prison to examine justice, accountability, and the human cost of capital punishment.
The Death Penalty: When the verdict becomes irreversible
The Death Penalty: When the verdict becomes irreversible
By Michella Rizk | February 10, 2026
Reading time: 7 min
More than 20 years after Lebanon last carried out an execution, the future of the death penalty is once again under parliamentary scrutiny. In January 2026, the Lebanese Center for Civil and Human Rights confirmed that a long-pending draft law to abolish capital punishment had begun advancing through Parliament, reviving a debate that has remained legally unresolved since 2004. The renewed discussion comes as execution figures rise in parts of the region, even as a growing number of countries worldwide move toward abolition.
On the path toward abolition
Legal breakthrough: “We are now in the final stage”
Lebanon’s debate over capital punishment is not new. As early as 2001, the first opinion survey of Lebanese Members of Parliament revealed broad parliamentary support for ending the death penalty. The findings showed that 74% of MPs supported either full or gradual abolition, with 33% favoring immediate and complete abolition, while 39% backed a moratorium on executions and the suspension of death sentences compared to 34% who opposed such a moratorium. The survey also showed overwhelming support for legal reform, with 94% of MPs backing the repeal of Law No. 94/302, commonly known as the “the killer must be killed” law, which mandated the death penalty for homicide regardless of intent.
The law, originally enacted in 1959 following the 1958 unrest, mandated the death penalty for homicide regardless of intent or circumstances. It was suspended during the civil war, reinstated in 1994, and led to 14 executions in just four years before its repeal.
A similar survey conducted in 2009–2010 confirmed the continued level of parliamentary support for abolishing the death penalty. The results showed that 68% of MPs favored either full or gradual abolition, while one-third supported immediate and complete abolition. In addition, 43% backed a de facto moratorium on executions as a temporary measure. At the same time, parliamentary opinion was evenly divided on whether to support the United Nations resolution calling for a global moratorium on executions.
Since 2004, Lebanon has effectively halted the implementation of the death penalty, observing a de facto moratorium on executions despite retaining capital punishment in law.
According to the Lebanese Center for Civil Rights (LACR), Lebanon has officially carried out 51 executions, all of them men, even though death sentences have also been issued against women without being enforced. Of these executions, 35 were carried out by hanging and 16 by firing squad. More than half of those executed, 55%, were between the ages of 17 and 27, while 44% were married and had children.
The majority of those executed were Lebanese nationals (40 cases), while 11 were foreign nationals, including individuals from Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. The crimes for which executions were carried out varied. 23 cases involved killings linked to poverty, 8 were related to rape, betrayal, or emotional crises, 4 were motivated by revenge, and 3 were linked to sectarian motives.
Today, 87 people are under death sentences in Lebanon, even as executions remain suspended. Speaking to The Beiruter, Hala Bou Ali, a member of the anti–death penalty working group at LACR, said that
Lebanon has entered what she described as a decisive phase in the effort to abolish capital punishment.
Bou Ali explained that LACR submitted a draft law to abolish the death penalty to Parliament in October 2025. The proposal was then referred, in November, to the Council of Ministers for review and opinion, a standard legislative procedure in Lebanon. While the Cabinet’s opinion is not legally binding, Bou Ali said it carries political weight.
“What is significant is that the Council of Ministers discussed the proposal and issued a recommendation supporting the abolition of the death penalty,” she said. “That recommendation was formally sent back to Parliament.”
According to Bou Ali, the draft law has since been taken up by the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee, where it was discussed in the presence of representatives from LACR. The next step, she said, is for the proposal to move to a general parliamentary session, where it will be put to a vote.
“Our work right now is focused on Parliament,” Bou Ali said.
We are engaging directly with MPs, lobbying them ahead of the general session so that the proposal is voted on and adopted.
Bou Ali stressed that the campaign to abolish the death penalty in Lebanon is “not a recent effort. The national campaign against the death penalty has been active since 1997.”
Bou Ali also pointed to Lebanon’s shifting stance at the United Nations. Since 2020, she said, Lebanon has consistently voted in favor of UN General Assembly resolutions calling for a global moratorium on executions, marking a departure from its earlier practice of abstention. More than two-thirds of UN member states now support these moratorium resolutions, reflecting broad international momentum toward limiting or ending the use of the death penalty.
“We genuinely believe we are now in the final stage,” she said. “There is real hope that the law will be adopted by Parliament and that Lebanon will formally abolish the death penalty.”
Together, these developments, parliamentary action, executive endorsement, and evolving international alignment, place Lebanon at a pivotal legislative moment. Capital punishment remains embedded in law, even as its application has been suspended for more than two decades. The outcome of the current parliamentary process will determine whether Lebanon continues to rely on political restraint or moves toward formal abolition through legislation.
Amnesty International’s Assessment
As part of its examination of Lebanon’s position within the global death penalty landscape, The Beiruter contacted Amnesty International to obtain data and contextual analysis on the country’s legal status.
The organization affirmed to The Beiruter that Lebanon remains retentionist under its classification, as it continues to maintain the death penalty in law despite not having carried out executions since 2004. According to the organization, this gap between legal retention and long-standing non-implementation represents an opportunity for the current government to signal a genuine commitment to reform. Amnesty argues that Lebanon should join the growing number of countries that have moved toward full abolition of the death penalty.
Beyond alignment with international human rights standards, abolishing capital punishment would bring tangible benefits for justice and accountability in Lebanon. Recent cases, including Bulgaria’s refusal to extradite a suspect in the Beirut port blast due to the risk of the death penalty, illustrate how retaining capital punishment can obstruct international cooperation and cross-border investigations. Codifying abolition would remove a key barrier to such cooperation, strengthen Lebanon’s ability to pursue accountability for serious crimes, and enhance prospects for truth and justice for victims, while aligning the country with evolving global human rights standards.
The Beiruter inside Roumieh prison
Case I: “I wake up every day wishing for death”
Bilal al-Baqqar, a former Red Cross volunteer involved in humanitarian work in Tripoli, was sentenced to life imprisonment following a failed attempt to carry out a bombing in the Jabal Mohsen area.
“My brother and his friends attempted a bombing in Jabal Mohsen, but it failed and the person who carried it out was arrested,” al-Baqqar says. “I was asked to hand over my brother, my own flesh and blood, but I had already sent him out of the country before the operation, after convincing him that this would only bring harm. He left, and I was left to suffer.”
He stresses that the attempted bombing resulted in no casualties. “Let me be clear,” he says. “The Jabal Mohsen attempt involved not a single drop of blood.”
Al-Baqqar says he and others were interrogated by State Security and referred to trial before the military court. “All the investigations concerned only the attempted Jabal Mohsen bombing, again, with no bloodshed,” he says. He adds that he was tried without his appointed lawyer and that only his brother and a friend spoke in his defense. When the verdicts were announced, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
“I laughed when they told me the verdict,” he recalls. “Not because it was light, but because I knew the one judging me was also my adversary.”
Reflecting on his experience, al-Baqqar recalls a lesson from his school years. “When I was in seventh grade, my civics teacher told us: don’t think too much about the life we’re living or the textbook you’re studying. If you compare the civics book to the life we actually live, you’d throw the books in the trash.”
“As someone sentenced to life,” he says,
I wake up every day wishing for death, because they have stripped us of hope, dignity, and humanity.
Taken together, these cases raise concerns that extend beyond the severity of sentencing. They point to deeper structural failures within Lebanon’s justice system: prolonged detention without final verdicts, inconsistent judicial rulings, military courts trying civilians, and a legal framework in which the death penalty exists alongside fragile due process guarantees.
Case II: “When you hear ‘life sentence,’ you feel that life itself has ended”
Ibrahim Assaghir lived an ordinary life. Before his arrest, he worked, supported his family, and lived modestly but peacefully. He was the father of six children. Shortly before his imprisonment, he married off his daughter and met his first grandchild, then seven months old. Soon after, he was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.
That moment marked a decisive rupture.
Twelve years later, Assaghir remains incarcerated in Roumieh Prison. During his detention, his family continued to grow without him. The grandson he last held as an infant is now a teenager. He has twelve grandchildren in total, most of whom he has never met. His youngest son was six years old when he entered prison; today, that child is an adult.
“I only know one of my grandchildren,” he says.
Assaghir says he never imagined he would receive a life sentence. When the verdict was announced, he described the moment as final, not only legally, but existentially. “When you hear ‘life sentence,’ you feel that life itself has ended,” he explains. “Everything stops at that word.”
He maintains that the ruling was unjust. Beyond questions of guilt or innocence, however, he describes the punishment itself as carrying a distinct and enduring violence: permanence. With the sentence came, he says, “the collapse of every future I imagined, growing old with my children, watching my grandchildren grow, living an ordinary life shaped by family rather than confinement.”
A life sentence is something no one can understand unless they receive it. At that moment, a person wishes for death.
Over time, he says, endurance replaces shock but not healing. “The wound does not close,” he says. “You only learn how to live with it.”
After more than a decade behind bars, what remains is not only lost time, but unanswered questions about justice, proportionality, and meaning.
“I saw my first grandchild once,” he says. “That is the memory I live with.”
The Beiruter attempted to speak with other prisoners sentenced to death, but several declined to give statements, saying they considered themselves “already dead” from the moment the verdict was pronounced.
The world moves away, not in one direction
At the global level, Amnesty International reports that 145 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice, meaning they have either formally prohibited executions or have not carried them out for many years. Yet this broader shift toward abolition did not prevent a spike in executions in 2024. The organization recorded 1,518 executions across 15 countries, the highest figure since 2015, underscoring a widening gap between the global trend toward abolition and the realities in a smaller group of retentionist states.
With executions suspended in some countries and expanded in others, the global debate over capital punishment continues to raise questions that extend beyond legal frameworks: whether irreversible punishment can be justified without clear evidence of its effectiveness, how justice systems account for the risk of error once a sentence is carried out, and where the boundaries lie between law, ethics, religion, and collective belief. These questions remain open, shaping public debate and policy discussions across jurisdictions worldwide.
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Michella RizkContent Manager/Writer at The Beiruter
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