STL condemns Hezbollah’s call for boycott

Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) condemned Hezbollah’s call for boycott calling it a “deliberate attempt to obstruct justice”.

This comes after Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah attacked Special Tribunal for Lebanon ( STL) and called on all the Lebanese to end all cooperation with its investigators.

“Whoever cooperates with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon is working against the Resistance,” he said and accused STL of sending all data gathered on Lebanon to Israel.

Referring to the Dhahiya incident (during which STL investigators were reportedly attacked by Hezbollah women and militants disguised as women) Nasrallah said : ” The investigation has already ended and the indictment has already been written and finalized, and it is the same one that was published by Der Spiegel and Le Figaro.”

“Any call to boycott the Tribunal is a deliberate attempt to obstruct justice,” a spokeswoman for STL told AFP.

“The STL will continue to rely on full cooperation by the Lebanese government and the support of the international community in fulfilling its mandate,” she said.

Future News

Future News reported on Thursday that Hezbollah was fully aware that Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) investigators had scheduled an appointment with Dr. Iman Charara four days prior to Wednesday’s incident at her Dhahiya clinic

“The head of the international team contacted Hezbollah security official Wafiq Safa and informed him that the court’s investigators will be at the Dhahiya clinic on Wednesday,” the report said.

Future News also reported on Thursday that the UN Security Council is expected to condemn Wednesday’s Dhahiya incident and hold Hezbollah responsible.

Geagea

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea criticized Nasrallah’s televised speech, describing it as “very dangerous.”

Geagea said Nasrallah’s stances are a threat against the Lebanese State, noting that the State is “the side mainly dealing with U.N. investigators.”

In an interview on Al-Arabiya television, Geagea urged President Michel Suleiman and Premier Saad Hariri to call for an urgent ministerial meeting “to remind everyone about the ministerial Policy Statement, which had legitimized the tribunal.”

“The indictment should be faced with the logic of the indictment” Geagea said

“We are with stability. This is why we are holding onto the Special Tribunal for Lebanon,” Geagea added.

The LF leader said that “the issue of Hezbollah’s arms is very worrying.”

“Hezbollah has regional reach, which puts us in the axis of danger,” he added.

The incident

Dr Sharara, who runs the clinic, and is believed to have close links with Hezbollah, said the investigators who came to her office had previously scheduled the appointment and that they “wanted to know the phone numbers of some 14 to 17 people who had visited her clinic since 2003.”

“They asked me for the phone numbers of between 14 and 17 patients since 2003 and I told them it would take me some time to review my files,” she said

When she opened the door to inform her secretary of the files needed, Sharara said she was surprised to see the huge crowd of women that stormed the waiting room although she had canceled all appointments for the morning.

Observers believe that the attack on the investigators was planned and carried by Hezbollah supporters aiming to convey to the UN tribunal in the Hague that it was unwelcome.

Tension escalated in Lebanon following reports that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon will soon issue its indictment into the 2005 assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Last July, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said that the tribunal is “an Israeli project” that will indict Hezbollah members. Nasrallah accused Israel of being behind Hariri’s assassination but refused to provide the evidence to STL to support his claim. Hezbollah and its March 8 allies have been calling for the abolition of STL.

Some leaders like MP Walid Jumblatt are concerned that should the court indict Hezbollah members, it could lead to a Shiite-Sunni strife, but others disagree since Hezbollah and its allies (the Syrian backed Palestinian militants ) are the only armed militias in Lebanon.