New Hampshire
‘Hostage in Lebanon’: New Hampshire family recounts father’s detainment, torture in new book
The family of Amer Fakhoury has spent the past four years pursuing justice and seeking accountability for his death after he passed away from stage 4 cancer in 2020, months after he was freed from prison in Lebanon.
Now, his four daughters are giving a first-hand account of his detainment and the harrowing rescue operation to bring him back home to the United States in a soon-to-be-released book, “Silenced in Beirut: American Businessman Amer Fakhour’s Six-Month Ordeal as a Hostage In Lebanon.”
Guila and Zoya Fakhoury spoke with Fox News Digital about the book ahead of its release on Sept. 12, the fifth-year anniversary of their father’s detainment in Beirut by the General Directorate of General Security, Lebanon’s government intelligence agency.
New Hampshire family wants justice from Iran for their late father’s illegal imprisonment in Lebanon. (Fakhoury Family)
“We wanted this book to just capture the injustice he faced, who was involved in his illegal detention, who are the big players [and] what the U.S. government did to bring him back home,” said Zoya.
“This story is very significant, because you actually get to see firsthand what Hezbollah is doing in Lebanon and what it’s doing to its people and how America is a part of that as well.”
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Fakhoury returned to his native Lebanon with his wife, Micheline, for the first time in nearly 20 years to see family but was detained soon after his arrival amid allegations from a Hezbollah-backed newspaper that he was the “Butcher of Khiam,” who tortured prisoners at the now defunct prison in the 1990s.
Hezbollah members salute and raise the group’s yellow flags during the funeral of fallen fighters who were killed in an Israeli strike on their vehicles, in Shehabiya in south Lebanon on April 17. (AFP via Getty Images)
The Fakhoury family vehemently denied the claims, saying their father only worked as a logistics officer with the South Lebanon Army (SLA), a Christian-dominated, Israeli-backed militia that was disbanded after Israel withdrew from the country in 2000.
Fakhoury fled Lebanon after receiving threats from Hezbollah after the SLA collapsed, staying in Nahariya, a seaside city in Israel close to the Lebanese border, for a few months before immigrating to the United States.
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His family says the Lebanese government published a list in 2016 indicating that Fakhoury had no outstanding charges prior to his 2019 detainment, and a 2018 amnesty placed their father on a list of SLA members not associated with running Khiam prison.
While Fakhoury was detained in Beirut, he was forced to sign a paper saying he held Israeli citizenship and was an Israeli spy, both baseless accusations, according to his family.
Amer Fakhoury immigrated to the United States in the early 2000s after fleeing Lebanon.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., who worked closely with the family, said in a 2020 press release that a Lebanese military court had charged Fakhoury with “unsubstantiated crimes that carry a punishment of death without producing any material evidence to back these allegations.”
The Dover, N.H., restaurant owner was beaten, tortured and forced to stay in unsanitary conditions with no sunlight or toilet, according to his family. They believe he acquired lymphoma from the Epstein-Barr virus, which he likely obtained from poor prison conditions.
“We really wanted to honor [Amer’s] legacy and to tell the world about this amazing father, great husband, and what happened to him was not fair. And someone needs to be held accountable,” said Guila.
“We lost our father, my kids cannot see their granddad, my mom, you know, he was her soulmate, 37 years of marriage. So, we lost a great man, and to this day, we don’t have accountability. So through this book, we want everyone to read his story, read about him, read about what happened to him.”
The Fakhoury family fled Lebanon as Hezbollah took over. They detail the detainment of their father, Amer, while on a family vacation in his native country in 2019. ((Fox News Digital/ Fakhoury Family))
Guila added that her father advocated for democracy in Lebanon, spoke out against Hezbollah and was active in the Republican Party.
“He was an American citizen. He was an advocate. He was in the Republican Party. He had pictures on his Facebook, [he was] close to politics in America. . . . I think this is the reason why they illegally detained him and put all these charges on him, knowing that none of it is true,” she told Fox News Digital.
“I do think, touching on his nervousness, at the end of the day, as much reassurance you can get from a government, I think deep down, he knew that Hezbollah was still in Lebanon, and I think that was his fear because he always. . . . You hear stories of Hezbollah being involved in kidnap cases. So, I think that was always in the back of his mind,” said Zoya.
The New York Times reported that Trump administration officials believed that Fakhoury’s arrest was directed by Hezbollah.
Former President Trump and his administration helped secure the release of New Hampshire businessman Amer Fakhoury. The two met several years before that at a Trump campaign event in the New Hampshire area. (Fakhoury Family)
Fakhoury was evacuated from the rooftop of the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon on a U.S. Air Force V-22 Osprey after Senator Shaheen and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, proposed bipartisan sanctions against Lebanese officials involved in the detention of U.S. citizens.
Seven months after his initial detainment and 75 pounds lighter, Fakhoury returned home and was treated at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, where he passed away five months later.
“What we’re still lacking [from] our U.S. government is accountability. So, unfortunately, it’s been four years that we’ve [been] trying to hold accountable Lebanese officials and the Lebanese government for the killing of an American citizen,” Guila told Fox News Digital.
Guila (right) and Zoya (left) Fakhoury open up about the death and detainment of their father, Amer.
“It’s been a very difficult journey. I think we’re blessed to have our family, honestly, because that’s where we both — we all get energy from each other. When one of us is feeling down, we feed off one another’s energy. And I think that’s what kept us going strong, because we didn’t really have a mourning period, to be honest with you, the minute my father died, we wanted to get to work, because we know the magnitude of his case,” said Zoya. “We know what he endured and just the injustice he faced.”
The Fakhourys started the Amer Fakhoury Foundation in honor of the late patriarch to advocate for the families of other detained Americans, seek accountability from foreign governments involved in the detention of U.S. citizens and pursue policy changes.
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The book is available on the foundation’s website.
The son of Cher is scheduled to be in court Wednesday for a hearing over allegations he broke into a New Hampshire home earlier this month.
It was the second arrest in a matter of days for Elijah Allman, 49, of Malibu, California, who was detained Feb. 27 after allegedly acting belligerently at a prestigious prep school in New Hampshire. It was unclear if Allman had any connection to either St. Paul’s School or the home in Windham, New Hampshire.
Allman remains in the Rockingham County Department of Corrections in what is called preventive detention, Superintendent Jonathan Banville said.
Allman, whose father was the late singer Gregg Allman, faces two counts of criminal mischief, one count of burglary and a count of breach of bail for breaking into the home on March 1. Police said in a report that Allman did not have permission to be at the home and forcibly entered it .
In the incident at the prep school, Allman was charged with four misdemeanors: two counts of simple assault, criminal trespass and criminal threatening. Allman was also charged with a violation of disorderly conduct, which is illegal in the state but not considered a crime.
At about 7 p.m. that day, Concord police responded to reports that Allman was disturbing people in the dining hall of St. Paul’s School. After charging Allman, police said he was released on bail as his case works through the court system.
Allman did not respond to an email requesting comment, and a phone number for him was not working. It was unclear from the court records if Allman has an attorney.
In December 2023, Cher filed a petition to become a temporary conservator overseeing her son’s money, saying Allman struggles with mental health issues and addiction have left him unable to manage his assets and potentially put his life in danger.
The petition from the singer and actress said Elijah Allman is entitled to regular payments from a trust fund. But “given his ongoing mental health and substance abuse issues,” she is “concerned that any funds distributed to Elijah will be immediately spent on drugs, leaving Elijah with no assets to provide for himself and putting Elijah’s life at risk,” the petition says.
A few weeks later, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Jessica Uzcategui denied the request, saying she was not convinced that a conservatorship was urgently needed. Allman was in the courtroom with his his attorneys, who acknowledged his previous struggles but argued that he is in a good place now, attending meetings, getting treatment and reconciling with his previously estranged wife.
New Hampshire
Possible 2028 Democratic White House contenders weigh in on Iran with New Hampshire voters
As the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran overtakes the foreign policy debate in Washington, two Democratic governors with potential 2028 presidential aspirations — Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear — recently traveled to New Hampshire, introducing themselves to the state’s famously engaged voters. The two weighed in on the war and both criticized and questioned President Trump’s strategy and endgame.
“If a president is going to take a country into war, and risk the lives of American troops and Americans in the region, he has to have a real justification and not one that seems to change every five to 10 hours,” Beshear told CBS News after a Democratic fundraiser in Keene.
“This President seems to use force before ever trying diplomacy, and he has a duty to sell it to the American people and to address Congress with it,” Beshear continued. “He hasn’t done any of that. In fact, it appears there isn’t even a plan for what success looks like. He’s gone from regime change to strategic objectives and now is talking about unconditional surrender, which isn’t realistic where he is.”
Beshear also said he thought that Congress should have reined in Mr. Trump’s war powers.
“He is trying to ignore Congress. He’s trying to even ignore the American people,” Beshear said.
He went on to note that the president’s State of the Union address took place “three — four days before he launched this attack,” and Mr. Trump “didn’t even have the respect to tell the American people the threat that he thought Iran posed to us.”
Last week, both the House and the Senate failed to pass resolutions to limit Mr. Trump’s war powers and stop him from taking further military action against Iran without congressional support.
For Newsom, the war with Iran constitutes part of a broader criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At an event last Tuesday in Los Angeles, Newsom had compared Israel to an “apartheid state.” Later, in New Hampshire, he sought to clarify his comment.
“I was specifically referring to a Tom Friedman [New York Times] column last week, where Tom used that word of apartheid as it relates to the direction Bibi is going, particularly on the annexation of the West Bank,” Newsom explained during a book tour event Thursday night in Portsmouth. “I’m very angry, with what he is doing and why he’s doing it, what he’s going to ultimately try to do to the Supreme Court there, what he’s trying to do to save his own political career.”
Friedman wrote that at the same time that the U.S. and Israel are prosecuting a war in Iran, within Israel, Netanyahu’s government has undertaken efforts to annex the West Bank, driving Palestinians from their homes; fire the attorney general who is leading the prosecution against Netanyahu for corruption; and block the government’s attempt to establish a commission to examine the failures that led up to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Jews by Hamas.
CBS News has reached out to the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., for comment.
On Iran, Newsom said, “I’m very angry about this war, with all due respect, you know, not because I’m angry the supreme leader is dead. Quite the contrary. I’m not naive about the last 37 years of his reign. Forty-seven years since ’79 — the revolution,” Newsom said. “But I’m also mindful that you have a president who still is inarticulate and incapable of giving us the rationale of why? Why now? What’s the endgame?”
Many attendees at Newsom’s book event said that the situation in Iran is a top-of-mind issue for them, too. Some said they’re “horrified” by what is happening.
29-year-old Alicia Marr told CBS News she decided to attend Newsom’s event because of his social media response to the war with Iran.
“There was one spot left, and I decided to pick it up, and it was due to his response to the war, that it is just unacceptable, and I would agree with that,” Marr said.
While some voters like Marr are eager to hear about where potential candidates stand on foreign policy, many at Newsom’s event said they care most about how potential candidates plan to address domestic issues.
“I’m more focused on getting the middle class back on track and fighting the oligarchy, and I’m less invested in international issues,” said Anita Alden, who also attended Newsom’s event,
“I wouldn’t call myself America first, but we have so many problems at home that are my priority,” she told CBS News.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who may also be weighing another White House bid, told Fox 2 Detroit last week that she “unequivocally opposes” the Trump administration’s military action in Iran and urged Congress to take action.
“If we want to stop Donald Trump with this random decision that he has arrived at, then Congress must act, and Congress must act immediately. The American people do not want our sons and daughters to go into this unauthorized war of choice,” Harris said.
Mr. Trump has lashed out against Democrats who have pushed back on his Iran strategy, calling them “losers” last week and arguing that they would criticize any decision he made on Iran.
“If I did it, it’s no good. If I didn’t do it, they would have said the opposite, that you should have done this,” the president said.
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