Charbel: No New Findings Reached in Case of Death Threats against Mustaqbal MPs

Security agencies have not reached any conclusive evidence in their investigation in the death threats directed against Mustaqbal bloc MPs, reported the daily An Nahar on Sunday.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel told the daily: “No new findings have been reached in the case.”

“It has become clear however that the number sending the threats is part of the Syrian telecommunications network,” he said.

The messages are being sent from within Syrian territory, he added.

Meanwhile, Telecommunications Minister Nicolas Sehnaoui told An Nahar that, at Charbel's order, the Syrian number has been barred from making telephone calls or sending messages to a Lebanese phone line.

An expert at the Telecommunications Ministry told the daily said that it is simple matter for the ministry to bar a foreign line from contacting a Lebanese one, noting however that the Syrian line may be contacting the Lebanese officials through a VOIP internet phone service.

“Locating the line making the threats however hinges on cooperation between Lebanon and Syria because the Lebanese network cannot locate a line in Syria without obtaining telecommunication data from the Syrian network,” it explained.

“A global system can locate the line,” it noted.

As for the identity of the caller, the expert said that no phone line can be purchased without valid identification papers.

“The difficulty lies in whether the owner of the line decided to abandon the original line and purchase a new one without informing a concerned telephone company,” it said.

Mustaqbal MP Khaled al-Daher revealed on Saturday that he received new death threats after several March 14-led opposition lawmakers received similar threats recently.

“I received new death threats via a telephone call to my bodyguard,” Daher told LBCI television.

He noted that his bodyguard said that the accent of the caller is “Syrian.”

“They are using a new method to intimidate us,” Daher added, confirming that he informed Internal Security Forces chief Ashraf Rifi about the incident.

In October, March 14 alliance MPs Ammar Houri, Ahmed Fatfat, Hadi Hbeish, Daher and Nuhad al-Mashnouq said that they were texted death threats from a Syrian telephone number before and after Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau head Wissam al-Hasan's assassination on October 19.