March 14 General Secretariat coordinator Fares Soueid told An-Nahar newspaper in remarks published on Sunday that March 14 will not allow Lebanon to be held “hostage” by Hezbollah through the newly formed cabinet.
He added that March 14 will not allow Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah to dictate the cabinet’s role and to force it to confront the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL).
His comment comes after Nasrallah ruled out on Saturday the arrest of any of the four members of his group indicted by a UN court for the 2005 assassination of former PM Rafik Hariri.
The STL confirmed the indictments in the assassination of Lebanon’s former PM Hariri on Thursday. An STL delegation met with Lebanon’s state prosecutor Said Mirza on Thursday and handed him a copy of the Lebanon portion of the indictment and the arrest warrants. Two of the suspects Mustafa Badreddine and Salim Ayyash are reportedly senior members of the Iranian and Syrian-backed Hezbollah while the other two Hezbollah members Hassan Aneissy, also known as Hassan Issa, and Assad Sabra played a supporting role in the execution of the assassination.
Lebanon has 30 days to find and arrest the suspects but Nasrallah said last night:
“No Lebanese government will be able to carry out any arrests whether in 30 days, 30 years or even 300 years,” said the Shiite leader whose group dominates the current government.
“We reject the Special Tribunal for Lebanon along with each and every void accusation it issues, which to us is the equivalent of an attack against Hezbollah,” Nasrallah added in his hour-long speech.
Nasrallah admitted all the four suspects are Hezbollah members:
“The suspects named in the indictment are brothers who have an honorable history in resisting Israeli occupation.” He said
The whereabouts of the four remain unknown but some reports indicated that the two prime suspects in the assassination already fled to Iran.
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