Man missing after interrogation

In December 2008 plainclothes military intelligence officers took Syrian citizen and United National Alliance member Nawar Abboud and two of his employees from his office in Tripoli to al-Qubbeh military base for interrogation. Authorities reported they released all three over the next two days, but Abboud remained missing at year's end despite his family's reportedly extensive efforts to find him. On November 10, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), the body mandated to investigate complaints of arbitrary deprivation of liberty, declared Abboud's disappearance to have been arbitrary. The WGAD said the government's response to its queries on Abboud's whereabouts had been "brief and imprecise" and urged the government to "show with precision the proof that he was liberated." At year's end Abboud's whereabouts were still unknown.