Lebanonwire, January 31, 2003

The Daily Star

Neighbors, relatives question official version of events surrounding ex-LF militiaman’s death and subsequent media reports

Badih Chayban
Daily Star staff

Neighbors and relatives of the Chahine brothers remain confused in the aftermath of Sunday’s shootout that claimed the life of Tanios (Anthony) Chahine and wounded four Judicial Police personnel.
Chahine’s brother Daniel was also arrested in the incident, which security sources said took place when the policemen were about to arrest Tanios at his home in Hazmieh to investigate his role in an incident in Ashrafieh last year.
Police said 35-year-old Tanios tried to resist them and threw a hand grenade at the unmarked Renault they were driving.
The sources said the grenade exploded near him, killing him and injuring the four policemen, while gutting their car.
Initial reports, based on police sources, said that Tanios was shot dead by the policemen because he resisted and threatened them with a hand grenade.
However, a neighbor of the Chahines who witnessed the incident and who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that police officers arrived at the street and arrested 30-year-old Daniel, adding that about half an hour later, another car came to arrest Tanios.
The man spoke with The Daily Star at the same spot where the incident occurred, as residents were paying their condolences to the Chahine family in the church across the street.
He said the details of the incident described in the media and by the security sources “were all wrong.”
“I saw Tanios getting in the Renault (police car), then I heard a gunshot while he was in the car, and later the explosion of the grenade occurred,” he said.
While the government’s acting delegate to the Military Tribunal, Maroun Zakhour, transferred Daniel to the military court for charges of brandishing a gun without firing it in a quarrel last year in Ashrafieh, security sources told the media that the two brothers were suspected drug dealers, devil worshippers, murderers, rapists and wife beaters. Neighbors, relatives and friends of the Chahine family said that they were “surprised and outraged” when they heard these stories.
“All that you have been hearing were complete lies,” one neighbor said, adding that “there were other reasons, related to the past of Tanios as a Lebanese Forces militia fighter … and the fact that he is a relative of Ramzi Irani says a lot.”
Irani, an LF official, was the victim last May of a murder-kidnapp, but no one was ever charged with the crime.
Father Charbel Chahine, who is the brother of Daniel and Tanios and who arrived from Venezuela after the news of his brother’s death, refused to make any comment regarding the details of Sunday’s incident.
Charbel’s only comment was that “the family will do nothing but pray for the moment, because no power is greater than the power of God.”
One of the Chahine’s relatives, who was paying his condolences at the Mar Roukoz Church, told The Daily Star that Tarek Chahine, who is a cousin of the brothers, was arrested Wednesday and is being interrogated by the police.
The man said that he knew Daniel and Tanios since they were children and that he would never believe what was being said in the media about them.
He added that if the police found arms in their home, it was insignificant, arguing that “every house in this country has arms.”
Riad Matar, Daniel Chahine’s lawyer, told The Daily Star that the only charges in connection with  the case were those related to the quarrel in Ashrafieh last year.
Matar said that it was “too early to start judging Daniel, who is a spiritual and religious person and who could be proven innocent in the end.”

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