Baabda Meeting to Tackle Progress in Telecom Data
President Michel Suleiman presided a meeting on Monday to tackle the latest developments on the so-called telecom data handed to security agencies investigating assassination plots against Lebanese officials, al-Akhbar daily reported.
The meeting, its second since July 21, was attended by Prime Minister Najib Miqati, involved ministers and the security chiefs, the newspaper said.
The first meeting was “satisfying,” Interior Minister Marwan Charbel told al-Liwaa newspaper. “We will now discuss the mechanism on (the data transfer) to see if it has loopholes.”
Suleiman has agreed to provide all the data related to crimes, he said.
On Saturday, opposition al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc leader Fouad Saniora hailed the decision reached during the meeting earlier in the month to provide security agencies with telecom data.
The March 14 opposition had slammed the government for refusing to deliver the data to the security bodies after MP Butros Harb escaped an assassination attempt following the discovery of detonators in the elevator of his office building in Beirut’s Badaro district.
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, another opposition official, escaped sniper fire at his residence in Maarab in April.
“The government is providing the security agencies with all they ask for,” Charbel said.
He stressed however that criminals are resorting to other ways of communication after the data row among the politicians became public.
“The dispute among politicians on the data has revealed our secrets. The criminal is now aware of the issue and will no longer use a mobile phone,” Charbel told al-Liwaa.
“Criminals, gangs and spies are not stupid. They will resort to other means of communications which don’t have any data,” he warned.
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