Damascus: Failure to Hand over Hariri, Saqr, Meqdad is Violation of International Law
Syria accused on Wednesday former Premier Saad Hariri, Mustaqbal MP Oqab Saqr, and Syrian opposition member Louay al-Meqdad of committing terrorist crimes, reported Syria's SANA official news agency.
Damascus' First Attorney-General Mohammed Marwan al-Loji stated: “Failure to bring Hariri, Saqr, and Meqdad to justice is a violation of international law.”
“They are involved in crimes of terrorism and therefore considered to be terrorists who can be captured by international criminal law,” he told SANA.
Interpol's office at the Internal Security Forces received on Tuesday from Syrian authorities arrest warrants against Hariri, Saqr, and Meqdad.
They were charged with the crime of arming the Free Syrian Army.
A security source later told Agence France Presse however that the Interpol has nothing to do with the arrest warrants.
Loji revealed that the warrants were issued in light of the airing of audiotapes revealing Saqr's contact with Meqdad and other Syrian rebels and their striking of an arms deal.
He added that the Lebanese authorities should have immediately lifted Saqr's immunity as soon as the recordings were broadcast.
“Charges will be filed against anyone found to be involved in the terrorist activity in Syria,” he stressed.
The warrants come in light of requests by the Lebanese judiciary to question Syrian security chief Ali Mamlouk, a colonel identified only as Adnan as suspects in the case of former Minister Michel Samaha and Buthaina Shaaban, Syrian President Bashar Assad's media adviser, to be questioned as a witness in the case.
Samaha was arrested in August on charges of forming a criminal gang aimed at carrying out attacks in Lebanon at Syria's behest.
OTV and al-Akhbar newspaper recently revealed that Saqr had been carrying out arms deals with Syrian opposition members, with the television station airing leaked recordings of conversations between the lawmaker and Meqdad.
Saqr said in a statement on Tuesday that the arrest warrants prove that the Assad regime “forged the recordings.”
He previously accused OTV and al-Akhbar of tampering with the audiotapes and saying that he will file a lawsuit against them.
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