Hizbullah Denies Involvement in Gebran Tueni Assassination
Hizbullah on Monday denied involvement in the 2005 assassination of prominent journalist and MP Gebran Tueni, chairman of the board of directors of An Nahar newspaper, after Al-Arabiya television broadcast Saturday a report claiming that Damascus and Hizbullah's intelligence department were behind the operation.
“Al-Arabiya's document on Hizbullah is fake and not everything published is a real document and you can tell that from the content,” Hizbullah's State Minister for Administrative Development Mohammed Fneish told reporters as he entered a cabinet session at the Grand Serail.
Later on Monday, Hizbullah issued an official statement denying “any involvement whatsoever” in Tueni's assassination, saying it is “awaiting the judiciary's ruling in this case.”
The party also slammed the comments of "some March 14 figures and websites" that were voiced after the airing of the report.
"The stances voiced by the March 14 forces on several issues are always based on fake documents and fabricated info,” said the statement.
It accused the March 14 camp of taking advantage of the “baseless accusations fabricated by the Saudi network Al-Arabiya and attributed to Syrian opposition activists, including those related to the assassination of MP Gebran Tueni.”
“It was not surprising that those who had excelled in fabricating false witnesses have resorted to fake documents whose authenticity has been questioned by their regional allies, topped by the Qataris and the Turks, who have described Al-Arabiya's documents as false, fabricated and baseless,” Hizbullah added, wondering whether the March 14 forces have received “an American memo to inflame the domestic situations.”
“Hizbullah denies any involvement whatsoever in the assassination of MP Gebran Tueni and stresses its condemnation of political assassinations,” the party said, noting that “some of those claiming keenness on the security of the country and its citizens do not enjoy the minimum sense of responsibility.”
“With the help of members of the intelligence department of Lebanon's Hizbullah, Mission 213, which was assigned to them on December 10, has been successfully accomplished with excellent results,” said an allegedly leaked Syrian document obtained by Al-Arabiya.
The document, dated December 12, 2005, was sent by head of the operations department in the Syrian intelligence, Hasan Abdul Rahman, to then chief of national security department Assef Shawkat, according to Al-Arabiya.
“In concurrence with Assef Shawkat's letter on accomplishing the mission and on the same day the letter was sent to the Syrian presidential palace, a booby-trapped car was awaiting Lebanese lawmaker Gebran Tueni to end his life while on his way to work, in an assassination operation described as mysterious back then,” Al-Arabiya added.
A leaked U.S. Embassy cable dated December 19, 2005 said Syria was likely behind Tueni's assassination in 2005, which was aimed at silencing his caustic remarks against the regime of President Bashar Assad.
The WikiLeaks cable, which was published exclusively in al-Jumhouriya newspaper, added that the assassination was also a message to the Lebanese opposition that “no one can protect them.”
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