Hariri calls Assad ‘monster,’ rejects warrants

BEIRUT: Lebanon and Syria engaged in a judicial war Wednesday with former Prime Minister Saad Hariri calling Syrian President Bashar Assad a “monster,” a day after Damascus issued arrest warrants for him and a member of his Future parliamentary bloc over allegations of arming and funding Syrian rebels.

As Syria issued its arrest warrants, Lebanon’s Judge Riad Abu Ghida set a date for an interrogation for two senior Syrian security officers charged with former minister Michel Samaha in a terror plot to destabilize Lebanon.

The recourse to judicial action reflected mounting tension between the two neighbors fueled by the reverberations of the 21-month-old bloody conflict in Syria on Lebanon where rival political factions are sharply split in their support for Assad and opposition groups fighting to topple him.

Hariri scoffed at the Syrian arrest warrants issued against him, Future bloc MP Oqab Saqr and rebel Free Syrian Army official Louay Meqdad.

“It is ironic for a monster to become a human being who advocates justice and issues sentences. Bashar Assad has all the characteristics of a monster,” Hariri said in a statement released by his office.

He added that Syria’s beleaguered president has lost “his moral, humanitarian and political prerogatives” to rule: “He [Assad] is wanted and he will sooner or later stand to face justice [wanted] by the Syrian people.

“He [Assad] will also definitely appear before the Lebanese judiciary for deliberately participating in assassinations, terrorism and sending explosives to incite strife among Lebanese,” the head of the Future Movement said.

“The warrants [should] revert to their owner, Bashar Assad; a courtroom is waiting to try him on charges of shedding blood in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, the killing of children and the annihilation of the Syrian people,” Hariri added.

A judicial source said that Lebanon would likely ignore the Syrian warrants.

“The prosecutor’s office will examine the legality of the warrants, but will likely decline to respond to the request or will send them back to Damascus,” a judicial source told The Daily Star, pointing to the lack of evidence in the case.

“Both Hariri and Saqr enjoy parliamentary immunity and therefore cannot be prosecuted,” the source added.

Syria issued arrest warrants Tuesday for Hariri, Saqr and Meqdad over charges of providing weapons and funds for “terrorist groups” in Syria.

Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said Interpol’s office at the Internal Security Forces received the warrants at midday Tuesday, adding that copies had been sent to all Arab states.

The move comes almost two weeks after a Lebanese television station aired audio recordings of Saqr allegedly discussing supplying Syrian rebels with arms.

Saqr has denied the allegations and said the tapes were doctored, adding that Hariri had tasked him only with providing humanitarian aid to thousands of Syrian refugees displaced by the fighting in Syria.

In Damascus, Syria’s prosecutor general urged that parliamentary immunity be lifted on Hariri and Saqr.

“[Syria’s] prosecutor-general was informed after the recordings uncovered the involvement of [the three men] in providing money and weapons to the terrorists in Syria,” Syria’s official news agency SANA quoted Attorney-General Mohammad Marwan al-Loji as saying.

Loji said the recordings also showed Hariri, Saqr and Meqdad were involved in sending Lebanese fighters into Syria from Lebanon.

“As soon as they heard the recordings, Lebanese authorities should have lifted [parliamentary] immunity against the deputies involved and handed them over to the Lebanese or Syrian judiciary, in accordance with bilateral agreements,” Loji said.

Loji’s comments came on the day that Investigative Judge Riad Abu Ghida set Jan. 14 as a date for the questioning of Syrian Gen. Ali Mamlouk, the head of Syria’s national security bureau, and an officer identified as Brig. Gen. Adnan over their alleged role in a terror plot to destabilize Lebanon.The two men were indicted along with Samaha, a key ally of Assad, in August over the plot said to have been aimed at stoking violence in Lebanon.

Abu Ghida, however, decided not to summon Assad’s senior adviser Bouthaina Shaaban as a witness in the case.

Judicial sources said Shaaban will be summoned after the outcome of the interrogation with Mamlouk and Adnan. They said Abu Ghida will send the request to an investigative judge in Damascus via Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry, through the Justice Ministry.

Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea rejected the warrants as “a link in the serial of shedding the blood of the Lebanese, particularly March 14 leaders, since 2005,” in a statement.

“After everythingthat has happened in Syria, Assad and his aides have lost their right to claim any legitimacy that entitles them to issue warrants,” he added.

Commenting on the Syrian arrest warrants, Hezbollah official and Nabatieh MP Mohammad Raad told reporters after meeting former President Emile Lahoud: “This is an internal Syrian affair in which we do not interfere.”

Speaking to reporters after meeting Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour, the Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdel-Karim Ali said he had appointed Rashad Salameh, a former Kataeb official, to file suit against “anyone who participated, incited, funded and sent arms [to Syrian rebels] and were actual accomplices in shedding the blood of Syrians.” – With additional reporting by Youssef Diab