Premier Najib Miqati has “no comment” on a TIME magazine interview with one of the four suspects named in the international tribunal indictment, his sources told An Nahar daily published Saturday.
But Miqati tasked Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi with following up the issue in accordance with appropriate legal measures.
Full StoryA woman was killed in a car crash in Nabatiyeh as she was heading to hospital to give birth, the state-run National News Agency reported Saturday.
It said Fatima Afif Noureddine, 32, died after the Toyota that her husband Staff Sergeant Wissam Rida Farhat was driving crashed into an electricity pole on the Hboush-Nabatiyeh road after midnight.
Full StoryHizbullah has tasked a technical team with drafting a report that challenges the international tribunal’s indictment and the circumstantial evidence of telecommunications data that implicated four of the party’s members in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s murder, a Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP said.
The lawmaker told As Safir daily published Saturday that Hizbullah would hold a press conference after drafting the report to present its findings to the public opinion and unveil new facts about Israeli manipulation of telecom data.
Full StoryAl-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc leader Fouad Saniora has stressed that the suspects in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s murder have guarantees and they are still suspects.
In remarks to pan-Arab daily al-Hayat in Doha, Saniora said: “From the start we said we want justice and don’t mean by it any type of revenge because in the past three decades Lebanon has lost two presidents, three prime ministers and several ministers and intellectuals.”
Full StoryGeneral Prosecutor Saeed Mirza has denied that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon has asked him to turn over the judiciary’s files regarding the attacks on former Ministers Marwan Hamadeh and Elias Murr, and ex-communist party leader George Hawi.
In remarks to al-Joumhouria daily published Saturday, Mirza said: “We haven’t been informed by the international tribunal about the deferral orders on the cases of Elias Murr, Marwan Hamadeh and George Hawi.”
Full StoryA warning made by French President Nicolas Sarkozy earlier in the month that Paris would consider pulling its troops from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon if it comes under attack again, is not the first, an official told An Nahar daily Saturday.
In a letter sent to his Lebanese counterpart President Michel Suleiman and PM Najib Miqati, Sarkozy said: “If the July 26, 2011 attack takes place again then France would wonder whether there is any reason to keep its troops to confront the dangers that the host country is not dealing with appropriately.”
Full StoryInterior Minister Marwan Charbel has said that the TIME magazine report should be considered by the general prosecutor’s office as a notification.
TIME has interviewed one of the four suspects wanted in connection with ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s Feb. 2005 assassination. The magazine didn’t identify the suspect.
Full StoryOne of the four Hizbullah members accused of involvement in ex-Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination has said that the Lebanese authorities would have arrested him if they wanted to.
"I don't care about the indictments. Let them come to arrest me," the man told TIME in an exclusive interview, which he gave on condition of anonymity despite having been publicly named by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon among the four suspects.
Full StoryLebanon, the Arab member of the U.N. Security Council, on Friday blocked a statement which would have called deadly attacks in southern Israel terrorism, diplomats said.
The move brought criticism from the United States which said the terrorism label is a "standard" Security Council description after such an attack.
Full StoryNinety percent of participants in a Christian meeting held Friday at the summer seat of the Maronite patriarchate in Diman favor the implementation of a proportional representation law in the 2013 parliamentary elections.
According to information obtained by Naharnet, the participants in the first meeting for the so-called preparatory committee for studying the electoral law “reached a 90% agreement on adopting the proportional representation law and there is an intention to hold another meeting, away from the media spotlight, to discuss the electoral law and prepare for a broad meeting aimed at reaching consensus over the text of a draft law.”
Full Story