Conflict Incident Report

A young man has confessed to sexually assaulting more than a dozen minors after he was captured by locals south of Beirut and turned over to police, the Internal Security Forces reported in a statement Saturday evening. A Syrian national identified as H.Sh., born in 2000, was arrested after a resident in Dohat Aramoun told the ISF in a phone call Friday “that some men living in an apartment had captured a delivery man for sexually assaulting M.L., a Syrian child born in 2008,” the statement said. After receiving the call and based on instructions from judicial authorities, a police unit arrested the suspect. “During investigations with him he admitted to having sexually assaulted 13 minors including a 15-year-old girl, saying that he himself was sexually assaulted when he was a child in Syria,” the ISF statement read. Local LBCI TV channel reported that the suspect is still a minor and will turn 18 in a month. The news outlet said residents apprehended H.Sh. after someone monitoring surveillance cameras in the building saw him assaulting M.L. in the footage. LBCI said H.Sh. worked as a delivery man in a shop close to the building. The ISF statement said the suspect has been referred to its Anti-Trafficking Unit for further investigations. The ISF also urged residents and parents in particular to immediately inform police if a case of sexual assault is suspected, because covering it up or remaining silent, “will make those continue and repeat their crimes, especially against children.”