A Lebanese Christian MP accused Hezbollah on Wednesday of involvement in
political assassinations in Lebanon, including the 2005 murder of former
Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.
Kataeb faction MP Fadi al-Haber
also blamed the Iranian-backed Shi’ite terror group for the killing of former
Lebanese MP Gebran Ghassan Tueni in a Beirut car bombing in December 2005. Tueni
was also the former editor of Lebanese daily an-Nahar.
Speaking to
Kuwaiti daily al-Seyassah, Haber said that “all of the assassination attempts
that have taken place [in Lebanon] were coordinated between Hezbollah and
Syria.”
“It’s clear that Hezbollah was ordered to carry out a number of
assassinations,” Haber was quoted as saying.
He noted that last year, the
UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon had indicted four Hezbollah officials over
Hariri’s murder. The organization has refused to hand over the four
men.
The Lebanese lawmaker also accused Hezbollah of working with Iran to
provide military support to Syrian president Bashar Assad’s forces.
Haber
added that cooperation between Hezbollah, Iran and Syria is not
new. Since its inception, Hezbollah has been led by Iranian strategy, and
there is evidence that Iran and Hezbollah are providing military support for
Assad in Syria, Haber said.
The Lebanese MP’s remarks come a day after
another Lebanese politician, Butros Harb, and members of Tueni’s family, filed a
lawsuit against two Syrian officers allegedly implicated in Tueni’s
assassination. Harb has asked the special tribunal to look into the
matter.
The two Syrians named in the lawsuit are Brig. Hassan
Abdel-Rahman and Brig.-Gen. Saqr Manoun. Their names were revealed last
week by the pan-Arab al-Arabiya news outlet, claiming to have obtained a leaked
copy of a classified Syrian intelligence document from May 2011, which discussed
Hezbollah’s involvement in Tueni’s killing.
Al-Arabiya said the document
contained a missive sent to Assad from Col. Saqr Manoun of Hezbollah’s Air Force
Intelligence, stating that 250 Hezbollah operatives had arrived in Syria’s
Aleppo province. Another document dated 12 December 2005 – the same day as
Tueni’s assassination – allegedly said that Syria had successfully carried out a
mission with Hezbollah’s help.
According to a report in an-Nahar on
Wednesday, a spokesman for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon has said that the
tribunal’s prosecutor would first need to present sufficient evidence to a
pre-trial judge in order for the case to proceed.
Hezbollah has denied
the allegations regarding Tueni’s assassination, stating earlier this week that
they were fabricated by “Syrian opposition activists” and the “Saudi media
network al-Arabiya.”