Madi: Attacks against Dar al-Fatwa Sheikhs Not Politically Driven

General Prosecutor Judge Hatem Madi stated on Wednesday that the assaults against the Dar al-Fatwa clerics in Beirut's Shiyyah and Khandaq al-Ghamiq neighborhoods are not related.

He said in a statement: “Based on the investigations conducted by the army intelligence and under my supervision, the attacks were not prompted by political or factional motives.”

“The attacks were the result of the tensions in the country,” he explained.

Investigations are ongoing to determine whether the seven arrested suspects have any other accomplices, Madi added in his statement.

The General Prosecutor ordered on Tuesday the arrest of seven people suspected of involvement in attacks on four Sunni sheikhs on Sunday.

Four of them are suspected of involvement in the assault on Dar al-Fatwa clerics Sheikh Mazen Hariri and Sheikh Ahmed Fakhran on Sunday in the Shiite area of Khandaq al-Ghamiq in Beirut.

The remaining three are suspected of attacking two other sheikhs, one of them identified as Omar al-Imami, in the Beirut suburb of Shiyyah.

Army intelligence sources told As Safir newspaper Tuesday that the two incidents in Khandaq al-Ghamiq and Shiyyah were not linked.

The perpetrators of the Khandaq al-Ghamiq assault are part of a “bigger network linked to other operations aimed at creating instability,” the sources said, without giving further details.

The assault on the clerics led to road closures in Beirut and other cities for the second day Monday.

Protesters blocked the roads with garbage bins and burning tires, inflaming old tensions already boiling over the conflict in Syria.