MP Akram Chehayeb, voiced his outrage on Sunday over the discovery of the bombing plot of former Information Minister Michel Samaha and Syrian National Security Bureau head Maj.General Ali Mamlouk and called for expelling Syria’s envoy in Lebanon to protest against the terror plot.
Chehayeb who is a key member of the National Struggle Front bloc which is headed by MP Walid Jumblatt said:
“Isn’t it about time that Lebanon expels the envoy of a rogue regime and stop its security coordination with the Syria regime after all what was revealed about its intentions?”
Chehayeb also wondered what the position of Lebanese officials will be “after it was proven that the [Syrian] regime wants to undermine Lebanon’s security and peace.”
His comments come after Judge Sami Sader , the government’s deputy commissioner at the Military Tribunal, indicted on Saturday Samaha and Mamlouk for setting up an armed group to incite sectarian strife through “terrorist attacks,” National News Agency reported on Saturday.
The indictment also included a second Syrian army officer who was only identified as Brig. Gen. Adnan.
On Thursday, Lebanese security forces arrested Samaha in a case linked to a bombing plan aimed to create a strife in Lebanon
Following his arrest, several reports revealed that Samaha confessed under interrogation that he had transferred “explosives from Syria to Lebanon in order to carry out bombings in North Lebanon, particularly in the area of Akkar, with Syria’s knowledge.”
“This is what Bashar wants,” Lebanese security sources quoted Samaha as saying of Syrian President Bashar Assad, in a video shot by a Lebanese undercover agent for the Internal Security Forces Information Branch.
He was referring to the bombing plan that was meant to be carried out in north Lebanon.
The security sources also said that, in the video, Samaha can be seen and heard as saying that Syrian Maj. Gen. Ali Mamlouk had handed him the bombs in addition to $170,000 cash that was meant to be distributed to would-be executors of the bombing plan in Lebanon.
Samaha is known for being a staunch ally of the Syrian regime and Hezbollah even years before he was appointed a minister in the cabinet. He was among several pro-Syrian Lebanese officials who were sanctioned in 2007 by the United States for “contributing to political and economic instability in Lebanon.”
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