 The family of Ismail al-Khatib have rejected claims that he plotted to blow up Italy's Beirut embassy and claimed that he was tortured before dying in official custody.
| "Ow! Ooch! Owwwww! Aaaaiiiieeeeee! Rosebud!" |
Thousands of mourners carried Khatib's white-shrouded body through the town before burying him on Wednesday, relatives angrily dismissed any al-Qaida link, and pointed to abrasions and bruises on the corpse that they said were signs of torture. "He died under torture. He was given electric shocks, beaten with sticks and they put cigarettes out on his body," said al-Khatib's father Muhammad. Lebanon's Interior Ministry said al-Khatib died of a heart attack on Monday, sparking a riot among residents of his hometown of Majdal Anjar that paralysed a nearby border crossing with Syria for several hours as they protested. There was no immediate official reaction to those claims and virtually no official or state security presence at Khatib's funeral, where mourners carried banners blaming Interior Minister Ilias al-Murr for the death and demanding he resign.
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