Lebanon on Tuesday released a social media activist on bail after her lawyer filed an appeal against a three-year sentence for "collaborating" with Israel, the lawyer and a judicial source said, according to AFP.
Kinda al-Khatib, who is in her twenties, was arrested in June and charged with "collaborating with the enemy", "entering the occupied Palestinian territories" and "collaborating with spies of the Israeli enemy".
She was sentenced to three years in prison in December.
"The military appeals court on Tuesday decided to release the activist Kinda al-Khatib in exchange for a bail of three million Lebanese pounds," ($1,990 officially, $200 at the market rate), the judicial source said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the case.
Khatib’s lawyer told AFP she had filed an appeal that had been accepted and a new verdict would be issued.
"Kinda will continue to appear in court" until the new judgement, she added.
Reports of arrests in Lebanon of suspected collaborators or spies for Israel are nothing out of the ordinary.
In October of 2018, the Hezbollah-affiliated television network Al-Manar reported that Lebanese security forces had arrested three Lebanese men suspected of collaborating with Israel.
According to the report, the three admitted that they had been in contact with Israeli officers and agents.
In 2017, Lebanon’s security services claimed they had arrested a spy ring comprised of five people who allegedly “spied for Israeli embassies abroad”.
In 2015, Lebanese authorities announced they had arrested two Lebanese nationals and a Syrian on allegations of spying for Israel.
Several weeks later, Lebanese media reported that soldiers had detonated a "listening device" allegedly planted by Israel in the southern Marjayoun region, close to the border with the Jewish state.