Rifi Returns to Foreign Ministry Syrian Notices against Jumblat, Khashan

Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi on Friday returned to the Lebanese foreign ministry four legal notices that had been sent by Damascus to the Lebanese authorities.

According to Rifi's office, the notices were not sent to “MP Walid Jumblat, journalist Fares Khashan and two other citizens given the illegal nature of the writs.”

Rifi noted that the notices violate the norms stipulated by the Lebanese law and the agreements signed between the two countries, “especially the judicial agreement that was signed between Lebanon and Syria on February 25, 1951.”

On May 22, the minister had confirmed receiving two Syrian legal notices against Jumblat and Khashan.

According to LBCI television, Rifi received the judicial writs from the Criminal Court of the Syrian city of Latakia.

The warrants were issued against Jumblat and Khashan for “undermining the Syrian state's authority.”

"The Syrian embassy handed the two notices to the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which then sent them to the Justice Ministry,” Rifi said at the time.

Former General Security chief Maj. Gen. Jamil Sayyed had announced on October 3, 2010 that his lawyers in Syria informed him of 33 in absentia legal notices issued by the Damascus First Investigative Judge against judges, military officers, politicians and journalists, in addition to other Lebanese and foreign figures.

Moreover, Syrian sources had revealed in 2010 that warrants were issued against Jumblat for “offending” the Syrian people.

Y.R.