Two-time US Marine deserter accused of faking his kidnapping in custody after spending 9 years on the run in Lebanon.

Two-time US Marine deserter accused of faking his kidnapping in custody after spending 9 years on the run in Lebanon. (DM).

A U.S. Marine charged twice with desertion has turned himself in to U.S. custody after hiding for nine years in Lebanon, authorities said Sunday.

Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, 34, surrendered to NCIS investigators in Bahrain, reportedly telling them that he feared for his life in Lebanon.

Capt. Eric Flanagan said that Hassoun was being from out of the Middle East to Norfolk, Virginia on Sunday. From there, he is to be moved to Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina, where authorities will decide whether or not to court-martial him.

'The Naval Criminal Investigative Service worked with Cpl. Hassoun to turn himself in and return to the United States to face charges under the Uniformed Code of Military Justice,' the Marines said in a statement.

Hassoun's saga began in 2004, when he allegedly constructed a hoax to make it appear that he had been kidnapped from Camp Fallujah, in Iraq.

Hassoun, who served as an Arabic translator, left the base on June 20, 2004. On June 27, a photographs surfaced of him being held blindfolded with a sword held above him.

The picture aired on Al-Jazeera, with the message that he was being held captive by a group called the National Islamic Resistance, who would decapitate Hassoun unless their demands of freeing prisoners from U.S. detention were met.

Hassoun returns to the United States facing two charges of desertion, the first being his initially allegation of it and the second for his disappearance in January 2005. It was not said what Hassoun had been doing in Lebanon during the nine years he hid there.Read the full story here.