Naharnet

Second Phase of Indictment May Include No Less than 12 Lebanese and Syrian Officials

The second phase of the indictment in the Special Tribunal for Lebanon will include the names of a number of Lebanese officials close to Syria and other Syrian individuals, revealed British security sources to the Kuwaiti al-Seyassah newspaper.

These names include the four generals, former General Security chief Jamil Sayyed, former head of the presidential guard Mustafa Hamdan, former Internal Security Forces chief Ali Hajj, and former military intelligence chief Raymond Azar.

They also include MP Suleiman Franjieh, former MPs Michel Samaha, Wiam Wahhab, Nasser Qandil, Abdul Rahim Mrad, and seven other individuals.

On the Syrian side, five or six intelligence individuals that were involved in Lebanon up until the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon in 2005 will be mentioned in the arrest warrants accompanying the second indictment.

These individuals, said the security sources, have since 2008, disappeared from the Syrian scene.

They are believed to be either killed or appointed at Syrian embassies in the Arab world or Latin America where Syria enjoys a large expatriate population.

The sources said that the second phase of the indictment “will create a violent earthquake in Lebanon and Syria as it will reach the Syrians at the highest level of rule and others who have been left out of the spotlight.”

They revealed that no less than 12 members of Hizbullah have been interrogated by the international investigation team looking into the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

They added that these members may also be involved in the assassination of other political, media, security, and military officials.

The second phase of the indictment will be issued during the next three weeks, added the security sources.

The first phase of the indictment included arrest warrants against four Hizbullah members and over the weekend, Interpol issued alerts to 187 countries calling for their arrest.

The party has denied involvement in Hariri’s assassination, saying that it will not cooperate with the STL, which it deemed as an American-Israeli product aimed at destroying the group.


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