Qabbani Files Lawsuit over Assault on 2 Dar al-Fatwa Sheikhs

Grand Mufti Sheikh Mohammed Rashid Qabbani filed on Monday a lawsuit at the prosecutor's office against the suspects involved in the attack on two Sheikhs in Khandaq al-Ghamiq last week.

The purpose behind the lawsuit is not revenge but the creation of a deterrence against all those who plot for strife, Qabbani said in his complaint.

The Mufti said he sought to protect Lebanon from internal and external plots against it.

Qabbani requested to refer the case to the Supreme Judicial Council given the danger of crimes committed against state security and civil peace in an attempt to stir strife among different confessions.

The Council deals with crimes that threaten civil peace.

The state-run National News Agency said on Thursday that the number of suspects seized by armed forces reached eight.

Two days earlier, General Prosecutor Judge Hatem Madi ordered the arrest of seven people suspected of involvement in attacks on four Sunni Sheikhs in two areas of Beirut.

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

The remaining three are suspected of attacking two other Sheikhs - Omar al-Imami and Ibrahim Abdul Latif - in the Beirut suburb of Shiyyah.