Nabih Berri

Lebanon

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Nabih Berri (Arabic: نبيه بري‎; born January 28, 1938) is the Speaker of the Parliament of Lebanon. He heads the mostly Shi'a Amal Movement.

Biography

He was born in Bo, Sierra Leone to Lebanese parents. He went to school in Tebnine and Ain Ebel in southern Lebanon and later studied at the Makassed and the Ecole de la Sagesse in Beirut. He obtained a law degree in 1963 from the Lebanese University, where he had served as the student body president, and became a lawyer at the Court of Appeals. During the 1960s, he joined the Arab Nationalist Movement.

Early career

In the early 1970s, he worked in Beirut as a lawyer for General Motors. He also lived in the Detroit area from 1976 to 1978.^{[citation needed]}

He held a series of positions in the Amal movement during the late 1970s, after the disappearance of Imam Musa al-Sadr, a Shi'a cleric who disappeared under mysterious circumstances while on a trip to Libya in 1978, and who is thought to have been killed on the orders of Muammar al-Gaddafi.

Civil war years

In 1984, Berri was elected leader of the Amal movement, and led it during the fierce fighting of the Lebanese Civil War. He subsequently joined the National Unity government as Minister for Southern Reconstruction, and later, he served as Minister of Justice and of Electrical and Hydraulic Resources, under Prime Minister Rashid Karami. He also was Minister of Housing and Co-operatives and Minister of State.

Later political career

Berri again served as a Cabinet minister from 1989 to 1992, and he was elected speaker of the National Assembly on 20 November 1992 at the head of the "Liberation of the South Movement" list. On 8 September 1996, his list, the Liberation and Development list, won the legislative elections and he was once again re-elected Speaker.

On 3 June 2003, he was elected President of the Arab Parliament, which he assumed on 1 March the following year.

According to a Wikileaks cable, Berri is losing supporters due to his rampant corruption. Furthermore, prominent independent Shia leaders claim that Berri receives a US$400,000 a month from Iran for his political services.

External links

• Lebanese Parliament Profile
• Works by or about Nabih Berri in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Nabih Berri collected news and commentary at The Jerusalem Post
• Nabih Berri collected news and commentary at Ya Libnan
• Profile at LookLex Encyclopedia