A Lebanese military tribunal has sentenced a Lebanese-Australian doctor in absentia to ten years in prison for being a "traitor," ABC News Australia reported.
His crime - helping Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon seek medical treatment in Israel.
"I was informed by my brother that a journalist close to Hezbollah in Lebanon made an announcement that the Lebanese military tribunal sentenced me to 10 years' imprisonment for being a collaborator and a traitor with the enemy," Dr. Jamal Rifi told ABC News.
According to Dr. Rifi, the conviction is related to his work with Project Rozana, a Nongovernmental Organization which provides medical training to Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon and facilitates the transfer of Palestinian Arab patients to Israeli hospitals.
"We have Palestinian volunteers who pick up the patient and their [guardian] and they take them from their home to the checkpoints or the border, they cross the checkpoint or border, and they will be picked up by an Israel volunteer who will take them to the hospital," he said.
He described the ventilators the organization procured for the Palestinian Authority last year in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic as "worth their weight in gold."
Dr. Rifi blamed the Hezbollah terrorist organization and the corruption in Lebanon for his trial and conviction in absentia.
"This is a reflection of the Lebanese corrupt system, which failed to protect their own citizens in Lebanon and now they are chasing expatriates outside of Lebanon for doing a good deed, for speaking the truth and for standing our ground by exposing their failures," he said.
He said the true motivation behind the trial was to discredit his brother, Ashraf Rifi, former director-general of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF), who is a vocal critic of Hezbollah and the damage it has done to Lebanon. He criticized the government for focusing on him instead of addressing the myriad of crisis' facing Lebanon right now, including inflation and fuel shortages.
As a result of the sentence, Dr. Rafi will be unable to return to Lebanon to visit his family.
Meanwhile, he has his hands full providing coronavirus vaccines at his clinic in the city of Sydney.