Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem said
on Tuesday that the investigation into the bombing that killed a top Lebanese
intelligence chief on Friday should be conducted locally without any
international interference.“Any attempt to give this case an international dimension will not be of any help, since the issue is a Lebanese issue and is the Lebanese judiciary’s responsibility,” he told Iranian IRNA news agency.
“The Lebanese cabinet decided to refer the case to the Judicial Council, which is the highest judicial authority in the country,” his eminence said.
Internal Security Forces intelligence chief Wissam al-Hassan was assassinated on Friday in a car bombing in Beirut’s Ashrafieh. The blast killed at least two others and injured at least 126 people.
The Hezbollah official, while stating that the bombing was an “unusual incident given the country’s circumstances,” called on the Lebanese authorities to conduct “serious and effective” investigations to uncover the perpetrators, adding that the incident should not be politicized.
On Monday, officials declared that the United States will send a Federal Bureau of Investigation team to help Lebanon probe the Beirut car bombing that killed Hassan.
However, Sheikh Qassem said that the support voiced by some Western countries for the government of Prime Minister Najib Miqati were attempts to prevent any involvement from Lebanon in the Syrian crisis.
“We heard statements about supporting this government to consolidate internal stability, but what is really meant is that the repercussions of the Syrian crisis should not affect Lebanon, not for the sake of its stability but to prevent its use as a center for managing the Syrian crisis,” he concluded.
| |
| The head of the Internal Security Forces said Monday that the United States
will send a Federal Bureau of Investigation team to help Lebanon probe Achrafieh
car bombing. Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi discussed the possibility of FBI assistance with David Brown, U.S. Embassy security attache, and Scott Smith, FBI legal attache at the U.S. Embassy, according to an ISF statement. The statement said that both U.S. officials met with Rifi at ISF headquarters after Prime Minister Najib Miqati asked for U.S. technical aid in the investigation in the killing of Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau head Brigadier General Wissam al-Hasan, officials said Monday during a telephone conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He did not say whether the FBI team had already arrived in Lebanon. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton allegedly stressed Washington's support for Lebanon's sovereignty, in a phone call with Miqati, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said. Riots since Friday had been controlled yesterday by the Lebanese army which deployed in many areas of the capital, as fresh violence erupted. Hasan's funeral on Sunday had turned into a failed coup d’état against the Lebanese government. Wissam al-Hassan and the Information Branch |
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