 |
| Nicholas Blanford: Monitor correspondent in Lebanon. Courtesy of the writer |
Our reporter's night in a Lebanese jail
After a run-in with Hizbullah militants, Monitor correspondent Nicholas Blanford finds himself in a Lebanese military jail.
from the August 1, 2007 edition
Page 3 of 3
"This is you?" the agent asked. I nodded meekly. Ali closed his eyes in resignation.
We knew it was going to be a long night.
It turned out that although firing automatic weapons is common in Lebanon, it is, in fact, illegal. And Ali and I faced being prosecuted in a military court for shooting a watermelon.
The bald agent refused to let us telephone anyone, answering every request to alert our wives to our whereabouts with a brusque "in five minutes."
Ali suspected that they were deliberately stalling, knowing that our first call would set in motion the process of getting us released. In Lebanon, if you want to get something done, it helps to have wasta, or connections with powerful people who can pull strings on your behalf. Both Ali and I had sufficient wasta for our predicament, if only we could contact them.
At midnight, we were placed in the custody of the Military Police, handcuffed, and driven to base's jail.
It was a long night. The lights were switched out, plunging the prison block into darkness. I laid on a smelly wool blanket spread out on the concrete floor of the cell, using my boots as a pillow and breathed in the fetid stink from the cell's latrines.
"Man, we really did it this time," said Ali.
After daybreak, we learned that we had been tracked down and the phone lines were burning to secure our release. The breakthrough came at 9 a.m., when we were told we could leave.
By 4.30 p.m., we were out. Soon we were back in Beirut.
On Tuesday morning, we returned to Ablah. Ali had to turn in an AK-47 he owned. When we met our jailers this time, they greeted us like brothers, kissing me on the cheek and patting our backs. One day we had been criminals, the next welcomed guests.
RSS feed
