In a statement issued on Tuesday, attorney Cynthia Georges Ephrem denounced a defamatory campaign against her client, Antoun Sehnaoui, describing it as an act of political score-settling.
The Lebanese public has grown increasingly exasperated by the recurring tendency to unjustly implicate Mr. Antoun Sehnaoui in every unfortunate incident or reprehensible crime, to the point that such claims now verge on the absurd. It is as though the old saying, “Blame it on the Italians,” has, in the minds of certain malicious individuals, been replaced by “Blame it on Sehnaoui.” These repeated accusations are clearly motivated by attempts to settle political scores or serve personal and electoral agendas that are no longer concealed from the public eye.
The latest of these malicious campaigns emerged in the wake of a heinous assault committed by a mentally unstable individual against two women. In this context, and in my capacity as Mr. Sehnaoui’s legal representative, I wish to clarify the following:
1. Mr. Sehnaoui unequivocally condemns the violent attack against the two women and expresses his full solidarity with the victims. He calls on the security forces and competent judicial authorities to take the strictest measures against the perpetrator and to impose the most severe penalties under the law.
2. Mr. Sehnaoui has absolutely no connection—direct or indirect—with the named assailant, Tony Felfli. The latter has never been employed by Mr. Sehnaoui nor has he had any affiliation with his institutions. Any attempt to associate the two constitutes deliberate defamation and is indicative of harmful and premeditated intent.
3. The recent defamatory campaigns have been orchestrated by known individuals, including a Member of Parliament from the Achrafieh district, who has sought to mobilize feminist groups and social media accounts by supplying them with false information, misrepresented as having been "relayed by activists," despite being entirely unfounded. Certain media platforms, recognized for their biased agendas, have also contributed to the spread of these allegations.
Such defamatory acts expose their perpetrators to legal liability for the reputational harm caused to Mr. Sehnaoui. Accordingly, we issue a clear and firm warning: any continuation of these baseless attacks will lead to legal action against all responsible parties.
The defamatory campaign targeting Mr. Antoun Sehnaoui began nine days after the Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF) issued a statement announcing the arrest of a man accused of kidnapping and violently assaulting two women.
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