Lebanon extradites Abdel Rahman al-Qaradawi to UAE, lawyer says

Lebanese authorities extradited poet Abdel Rahman Yusuf to the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday afternoon, according to Mohamed Sablouh, his lawyer.

Qaradawi entered a hunger strike at 6 pm on Tuesday to protest the decision, according to Sablouh, who published updates on the extradition process online over the course of the last 24 hours.

Lebanese authorities had detained the poet and Egyptian national on December 28 after he entered the country from Syria, where he had shared a video criticizing the regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE on social media. 

Both Egypt and the UAE had requested Yusuf's extradition following his arrest, but Lebanon’s public prosecutor and government ultimately responded to the UAE, agreeing on Tuesday to hand over Yusuf to the Gulf country, Lebanese Information Minister Ziad Makary told reporters on Tuesday evening.

The Lebanese government’s memorandum on the decision, which was circulated in the media, confirmed that there is no bilateral extradition agreement with the UAE but defended the decision as a "sovereign matter” and praised the Emirati legal system, stressing that Beirut received assurances from Abu Dhabi that Qaradawi will receive “fair and humane” treatment.

Lebanese authorities transferred Qaradawi in the early hours of Wednesday from his detention in the Beirut Palace of Justice to the Lebanese General Security despite Qaradawi's defense appealing the government decision before the urgent court, Sablouh announced on Facebook today.

Sablouh later announced that Qaradawi entered a hunger strike at 6 pm on Tuesday “until the injustice against him ends.” The lawyer also noted that the Lebanese Internal Security Directorate prevented him from visiting the poet this morning, despite acquiring a permit from the Public Prosecution. Later, Sablouh said that Qaradawi was put on a flight to the UAE at around 2:15 pm.

Abdel Rahman, the son of the late Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who founded the International Union of Muslim Scholars, was initially arrested in Lebanon on December 28 while returning from Syria on the basis of a notice issued by the Arab Interior Ministers Council following a 2016 prison sentence issued in absentia by an Egyptian court that convicted Qaradawi of spreading false news.

Sablouh previously explained to Mada Masr that the UAE had submitted a request to extradite Qaradawi, while an official Egyptian request to extradite him was delayed and ultimately arrived without official stamps. The lawyer said he was surprised, however, by the speed with which the Lebanese public prosecutor and government addressed the UAE request, ignoring a request from the Turkish embassy to permit the poet to travel from Lebanon to Turkey, where he also holds citizenship.

The UAE’s request to extradite Qaradawi, based on charges of “inciting to destabilize the security of the UAE,” came after Qaradawi posted a video on social media, later deleted, during a quick visit to Syria to participate in celebrations of the fall of the Assad regime. In the video, which showed him walking around the Umayyad Mosque square, Qaradawi criticized the ruling regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

Sablouh had previously argued that the extradition was unjust, given that Qaradawi had committed crimes in neither Lebanon nor the UAE and that the two countries do not have a bilateral extradition agreement, while emphasizing that freedom of expression is protected under the Lebanese constitution and in international agreements that Lebanon has ratified. 

The Lebanese government's memorandum on Qaradawi's extradition to the UAE quoted recommendations made by the public prosecutor as saying that, “According to Article 35 of the Penal Code, the extradition decision is not a purely judicial matter but rather a sovereign decision taken by the executive authority in a manner that takes into account the supreme interest of the state.”

The memo confirmed more than once the absence of a bilateral extradition treaty between Lebanon and the UAE but noted that the latter pledged in its request to extradite Qaradawi to reciprocate in similar cases.

The memo also heaped praise on the UAE, describing it as having the best civil and criminal justice system in the Middle East and North Africa, and pointed out that it was a three-time member of the United Nations Human Rights Council, confirming “the international recognition of its efforts in promoting and protecting human rights.”

UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed assured Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati that Qaradawi will face “fair and humane” treatment in the UAE, according to the memo.

Sablouh had previously criticized the acceleration of what he described as “the quickest court case in Lebanese history,” speculating the decision was hastily taken to close the case before the Parliament elects a new Lebanese president on Thursday, who will then have the ultimate decision on extraditions.

The lawyer had also voiced concern that his client’s extradition would breach Lebanon’s commitments to several international frameworks, including the UN convention against torture, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Riyadh Arab Agreement for Judicial Cooperation, and the Arab League’s extradition treaty, which prohibits extraditing individuals facing political charges or the risk of persecution or torture.

He previously told Mada Masr that he intends to prosecute the Lebanese prime minister and Cabinet before the international judiciary if they agree to extradite Qaradawi to the UAE.