LF says Hezbollah is at least indirectly responsible for Sleiman’s murder

The Lebanese Forces on Tuesday stressed that the probe into the murder of LF’s Jbeil coordinator Pascal Sleiman should be “clear, transparent, public, frank and accurate with its details and circumstances.”

“Until the results of this investigation get release, we will consider that Pascal Sleiman fell a victim of a political assassination operation,” the LF said in a second statement on the incident.

It added that three allegedly Hezbollah-related factors had contributed to the crime.

“The first factor is represented in Hezbollah’s presence in its current form under the excuse of resistance or other alibis. This illegitimate presence of Hezbollah has led to paralyzing the role of the state and the effectiveness of this role, which has allowed for the presence of armed gangs and armed chaos,” the LF said in its statement.

The party also blamed Hezbollah for the state’s weak control of its border with Syria and for “castrating the state’s judicial, security and military institutions through barring them from working in certain areas or on certain cases or in any matter related to any person belonging to the Axis of Defiance.”

The Lebanese Army has arrested seven Syrians on suspicion of involvement in Sleiman’s murder, a judicial official said Tuesday, amid a backlash against Syrian refugees.

The LF said overnight it would consider Sleiman's murder a "political assassination until proven otherwise," although the army said he had been killed for his car. Some social media users pointed the finger at Hezbollah, drawing a denial from its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

"The kidnappers admitted that their goal was stealing the victim's car," the judicial official said.

The official said the suspects told investigators they hit Sleiman with pistol butts on the head and face until he stopped resisting. They then threw him in the boot of his own car and drove him to Syria. He died on the way there.

A military official told AFP that Damascus had handed over three of the suspects and was expected to repatriate Sleiman's body later Tuesday.

He said the body had been found in an area of Syria near the Lebanese border which is infamous for lawlessness.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a body corresponding to the description of the victim had been dumped in an area near the border where Hezbollah holds sway.

On Monday, hundreds of residents blocked roads in Jbeil, with footage circulating on social media of violence against Syrians -- many of them refugees from their country's more than decade-old civil war.

Ramzi Kaiss of Human Rights Watch said Lebanon must ensure "that the investigation into the killing is thorough and transparent in light of decades of impunity in Lebanon for politically sensitive killings."