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"A Saudi doctor never thought his 40-year-old love for Lebanon would get him involved in a drug case which his Lebanese best friend masterminded as part of an elaborate plot"
RIYADH – Dr. Zakariya Al-Faisal, an ophthalmologist, had fallen in love with Lebanon since 1973 when he visited Beirut from neighboring Egypt, where the then 18-year-old was a medical student. From the moment he stepped foot in Beirut, Al-Faisal was taken aback by the city's rich art and theater scene and visited the country on a regular basis until recently. While enjoying the quiet scene of a warm evening from his balcony in Beirut, a police car pulled up in front of his house and parked next to his car. Apparently, the police officers were waiting for someone. Suddenly, another vehicle arrived and two people in plain clothes got out and started shouting, “Whose car is this?” while pointing at Al-Faisal's vehicle. When he told them it was his, they immediately asked him to come down and unlock the car. Once unlocked, they started searching the vehicle until one of them pulled a black briefcase from under the driver's seat. They then pulled a bag full of nuts from inside the briefcase and examined the contents. “Yes, it's the drugs we were looking for,” one of the officers said. “I was shocked and I froze for a few seconds and then thought to myself ‘I've been framed. This is a setup. It can't be true',” he recalled. Before he could say anything, he was handcuffed and ordered to get into the police vehicle. As he was being taken to the police station, he saw his neighbor come out and ask what was going on. The officers just ignored him. During investigations, he told officers that he did not have anything to do with the briefcase and had not seen it before. Afterwards, he was taken to a jail where he stayed for almost an hour before the Saudi Embassy's representative arrived, accompanied by a Lebanese lawyer. Al-Faisal was reassured by his lawyer that he would be released shortly. But things took a turn for the worse when an officer from the Public Security Department arrived to take over the investigation. The Saudi Embassy called the Lebanese interior minister and prime minister and the officer was allowed to conduct a brief interview with Al-Faisal. Once again, Al-Faisal was asked the same questions and he gave the same answers he had given to the police. A few hours later at 1 a.m., it was decided that Al-Faisal should be referred to the Anti-Drug Department. “I remember that day very well because something funny happened. The police officers didn't know the Anti-Drug Department's address and spent an entire hour asking random people about its location,” Al-Faisal said. When officers finally found it, they handed Al-Faisal over to the officer in charge and left. He was put in a jail cell and remained there for two days until the chief officer allowed him to stay in a room for another two days. On the fifth day, he had a glimmer of hope. The investigations showed that Al-Faisal's neighbor and best friend was the one who had framed him. The neighbor plotted to send Al-Faisal to prison in order to get his hands on the doctor's house and sell it. When the doctor was released, he went straight to the airport and left on the next flight to the Kingdom. He is currently planning to write a book about his ordeal in Lebanon.
