{"id":138325,"date":"2025-10-22T13:12:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T13:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/138325\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T13:12:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T13:12:10","slug":"pop-star-turned-islamist-militant-in-court-after-12-years-on-the-run-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/138325\/","title":{"rendered":"Pop star turned Islamist militant in court after 12 years on the run | World News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Lebanese pop star turned wanted Islamist militant has appeared in court after 12 years on the run.<\/p>\n<p>Fadel Shaker had been hiding in Palestinian refugee camp Ein el-Hilweh since bloody street clashes erupted between Sunni Muslim militants and the Lebanese army in June 2013 in the coastal city of Sidon.<\/p>\n<p>He was sentenced to 22 years in prison in 2020 for providing support to a &#8220;terrorist group&#8221; after being tried in absentia.<\/p>\n<p>As part of the deal that persuaded Shaker to turn himself in, the sentences he received while on the run would be dropped.<\/p>\n<p>He would also be questioned in preparation to stand trial on new charges of committing crimes against the military.<\/p>\n<p>Tuesday&#8217;s court appearance was a preliminary questioning session.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read more from Sky News:<\/strong><br \/><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/46-people-killed-in-crash-involving-two-buses-in-uganda-13454919\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Fatal crash involving two buses in Uganda<\/a><\/strong><br \/><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/police-van-ablaze-and-bottles-thrown-at-officers-as-protests-flare-outside-dublin-asylum-hotel-13454703\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Police helicopter targeted with lasers in Dublin<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>                    <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/skynews-yalda-podcast_6910436.jpg\" alt=\"Follow the World\" class=\"sdc-article-strapline__image\" data-testid=\"article-strapline-image\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                Follow the World<\/p>\n<p class=\"sdc-article-strapline__text\" data-testid=\"article-strapline-body\">Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday<\/p>\n<p>                <a href=\"https:\/\/podfollow.com\/the-world-with-richard-and-yalda\" class=\"sdc-article-strapline__button\" target=\"_blank\" data-testid=\"article-strapline-button\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Tap to follow<\/a><\/p>\n<p>     <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/download-app\" target=\"blank\" data-tracking-label=\"ui-app-promo-download-link\" class=\"ui-app-promo sdc-article-widget\" data-type=\"\" data-component-name=\"ui-app-promo\" data-testid=\"app-promo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><\/p>\n<p>    <\/a><\/p>\n<p>During the 2013 shootout, which killed at least 18 soldiers, Shaker appeared in a YouTube video calling his enemies pigs and dogs.<\/p>\n<p>He also taunted the military, saying &#8220;we have two rotting corpses that we snatched from you yesterday&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>This was an apparent reference to slain soldiers.<\/p>\n<p>Shaker shot to fame in the Arab world with a smash hit in 2002.<\/p>\n<p>Some 10 years later, he appeared to have fallen under the influence of hard-line Sunni cleric Sheikh Ahmad al Assir.<\/p>\n<p>          <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"sdc-article-image__item\" loading=\"lazy\" intrinsicsize=\"768x432\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/skynews-fadel-shaker-lebanon_7058124.jpg\"   alt=\"Ahmad al Assir (L) and Shaker (C) at a protest in Beirut in October 2012. Pic: Reuters\" data-testid=\"article-image-image\"\/><\/p>\n<p>        Image:<br \/>\n        Ahmad al Assir (L) and Shaker (C) at a protest in Beirut in October 2012. Pic: Reuters<\/p>\n<p>Shaker shocked fans by turning up next to the cleric at rallies and later said he was giving up singing to become closer to God.<\/p>\n<p>In July, Shaker and his son Mohammed released a new song that has garnered more than 100 million views on YouTube.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Lebanese pop star turned wanted Islamist militant has appeared in court after 12 years on the run.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-138325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}