1982–1990
He is held at Roumieh Prison for eight years. No trial is ever convened.
32
people killed
Achrafieh, Beirut, 14 September 1982
At large since 1990
A sentenceunserved
Sentenced to death.
Never arrested.
He confessed two days after the bombing that killed thirty-two people in Achrafieh. He spent eight years in Roumieh without a trial, walked out in 1990, and was convicted in absentia by Lebanon’s Judicial Council in 2017. No court has ever heard him answer the charge.
HABIB
CHARTOUNI
CHARTOUNI
- Born
- 24 April 1958, Chartoun, Aley
- Affiliation
- Syrian Social Nationalist Party
- Convicted
- 20 October 2017, in absentia
- Charge
- Premeditated murder
- Status
- Whereabouts unknown
days at large
Since he walked out of Roumieh, 13 October 1990
days unserved
Since the Judicial Council verdict, 20 October 2017
days without an answer
Since Beirut formally asked Damascus where he is
The record
Every entry is drawn from the public court record and contemporaneous reporting. Sources are listed in full on the case file page.
14 September 1982
A bomb is detonated at the Kataeb Party headquarters in Achrafieh. President-elect Bachir Gemayel and thirty-one others are killed. He had been elected three weeks earlier and had not taken office.
16 September 1982
Chartouni is arrested. He confesses publicly to planting the explosives and names an SSNP official as the man who supplied them and the detonator.
13 October 1990
He walks out of Roumieh during the Syrian offensive on Baabda and crosses into Syrian-held territory.
25 November 2016
The Judicial Council opens proceedings in absentia and orders him to surrender himself. He does not appear.
20 October 2017
The Judicial Council convicts him of premeditated murder, sentences him to death in absentia alongside Nabil Alam, and strips both men of their civil rights.
December 2024
The Assad government falls. The protection that shielded him for three decades ends with it.
1 October 2025
At the second session of the Lebanese–Syrian Judicial Committee, Beirut formally requests every document and piece of evidence Damascus holds on four decades of political assassinations. The Justice Minister asks specifically for Chartouni’s whereabouts.
Today
No answer. No arrest. The file is open and nothing is moving.
Sign the petition
Signatures are verified and delivered as a formal submission to the Presidency, the Ministry of Justice, and the Lebanese–Syrian Judicial Committee. Names are counted publicly. Contact details are never published.
We call on the Government of Lebanon and on the authorities of the Syrian Arab Republic to:
- Establish and disclose the whereabouts of Habib Tanious Chartouni.
- Secure his arrest and his transfer into Lebanese custody.
- Try him in person, in open court, before the Judicial Council.
A conviction handed down in absentia is not a conclusion. We are asking for the trial that has never taken place, with the defendant present and represented.
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The case is forty-four years old and most of it has never been assembled in one place. That is the work this pays for.
- The public case fileCourt documents, the 2017 judgment and the contemporaneous record, digitised, translated into Arabic, English, French, Spanish and Portuguese, and published in full.
- Legal representationCounsel acting for the victims’ families as civil parties before the Lebanese courts, and on extradition proceedings in any jurisdiction where they arise.
- The victims’ familiesDirect support, and the cost of recording and publishing the biographies of all thirty-two people killed.
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- Internal Security ForcesJudicial police, Beirut
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