Tragically, the young Lebanese singer, George el-Rassi (39 years old) was killed along with his business coordinator, Zeina Merehbi, in the early hours of August 27, 2022. El-Rassi – who had scored success thanks to his beautiful voice and popular songs since he launched his career in the 1990s – was returning from a concert in the Syrian capital, Damascus, when his car crashed into a cement block in the middle of the highway after Al-Masnah, the main border crossing that separates Lebanon and Syria. The car was completely destroyed, killing El-Rassi and Merehbi.
The story soon spread in Lebanon, especially among fans on social media. Of course, the biggest shock was felt by George's family. Media outlets, including Syria.tv, focused on his sister, the famous actress, Nadine El-Rassi, who expressed her anger repeatedly and accused the Minister of Transportation in the caretaker cabinet, Ali Hamiyeh, of being directly responsible for the “crime” of killing of her brother because of the state’s negligence concerning the Al-Masnah highway, a main road where George and other drivers are hard pressed to see the cement block in the middle of this international highway since there is no lighting.
The El-Rassi family's lawyer, Ashraf al-Mousawi, declared that the family will be filing a complaint in front of the legal and criminal courts against the Lebanese state and anyone who is found to be implicated in the crime of violating the most basic safety rules on Al-Masnah highway which lead to El-Rassi's death when his car crashed into the concrete road block.
Nadine El-Rassi, who was extremely affected by her brother's death, then made some fiery statements against the Lebanese state and the ministry of public works. She even wished that the minister’s son drops dead (some days later, she apologized to him but still accused the contractor in charge of the highway of responsibility for her brother's death).
This prompted the minister, Ali Hamiyeh, to respond, calling the Al-Masnah highway “a death road.” Hamiyeh then employed the pretext of his ministry's poor budget, which amounts to 39 million Lebanese pounds, i.e. just about one million dollars per year, and pledged that he will not “just stand and watch all the road accidents in Lebanon” and that “the culprits will be punished according to the law.” He further indicated that “there are three elements that constitute a major factor in any road accident: the roads, the driver, and the car.” Hamiyeh admitted that “just like all the Lebanese ministries, the ministry of public works failed to analyze this file and to come up with a solution for road safety. Therefore, we took some measures last Monday to learn the details behind this accident and to learn where the file is.” Hamiyeh also addressed the measures that need to be applied in the upcoming phase and sid: “The first measure is to examine the highway. Then, other roads will also be examined. I am going to take this to the end, and I will not cover for anybody's mistakes. Let the investigation be completed.”
For its part, on August 30, the popular 961 website published an investigative report about the deadly road accidents at the Al-Masnah border. The report shed light on a number of accidents that led to the deaths of Lebanese and Syrian individuals who were driving in the area at night - all for same reason that killed George el-Rassi and his coordinator i.e. the cement road block placed in the middle of a road with no lighting. The report further indicated that the Lebanese and Syrian governments made no efforts to address this problem over an entire decade. Some of the accidents cited by the report included: In 2016, three Syrian nationals were killed when their car crashed into the block; four Syrians were injured in 2018 when their car crashed into the same cement block; and in May 2022, an Egyptian national was killed when his truck crashed into the block. The website also recalled a 2017 statement by the neighboring Majdel Anjar Mayor, Hussein Dib Yassin, who said: “The Al-Masnah area needs to receive the attention of the Ministry of Public Words to reduce the deadly accidents there and to secure lighting at night.” However, successive Lebanese cabinets apparently did not heed the clear, public warning.
Fact Check Assessment: Partially True
Nadine El-Rassi's allegation that the minister of public works and the Lebanese state have committed “the crime” of killing her brother, George, is partially true. The longstanding, gross negligence of the ministry of public works which failed to address the problem of the cement road block and lighting over long years has led to a long list of victims, the last of which were George and Zeina. In this sense, the ministry of public works is certainly morally responsible for this negligence. However, the Minister, Ali Hamiyeh, who took over in September 2021, is not the only one morally responsible for this negligence - previous governments and ministers all knowingly participated through inaction in the repeated failure to address the catastrophic deficiencies. Most importantly, under Lebanese law “gross negligence” by the state authorities, especially where death is the result, can rise to the level of an actual crime punishable by prison or even the death penalty. According to Human Rights Watch, the 2020 Beirut Port Explosion, for example, which likely resulted from the improper storage and treatment of fertilizer and led to more than 200 deaths, could have risen to the standard of “criminal negligence” by the state. Still, without a fair court trial on this particularly complex subject, it remains an open question whether the state and/or the minister definitively committed a “crime” that meets the standards set by Lebanese law. It further remains to be seen whether anything that the driver (El-Rassi) did that terrible night might have contributed to the catastrophic result.
