Charbel: Order to Promote Officers to Be Issued Thursday, Excludes Hassan

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel announced on Thursday that the decree on the promotion of police officers will be issued later today, adding that it will include some 25 officers.

He told Voice of Lebanon radio however that the decree does not include the promotion of the head of the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau Brigadier General Wissam al-Hassan, whose promotion has been postponed to January 1, 2012.

Today’s decree has been signed by President Michel Suleiman, Prime Minister Najib Miqati, and Finance Minister Mohammed Safadi.

The March 8 camp has been critical of Hassan’s work in the past, accusing of him, among other things, of leaking the Special Tribunal for Lebanon indictment in July.

In October, President Michel Suleiman withheld his signature from a decree to promote the police officers at the behest of Hizbullah and FPM leader Michel Aoun.

Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc sources said in October that Syria was behind the blocking of Hassan’s promotion because it was frustrated at ISF chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi’s attempt to link the disappearance of Syrian opposition members in Lebanon to the Syrian embassy.