Beirut, December 05: A senior Hezbollah official says the US-backed Israeli regime seeks to wipe out the Lebanese resistance movement through the investigation into the Rafiq Hariri assassination.
“Lebanon today faces a new chapter of targeting the resistance through the international tribunal,” Sheikh Nabih Qaouq said on Saturday, in a reference to a US-funded court charged with investigating the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, the Lebanese news portal Naharnet reported.
Hezbollah has repeatedly warned against the reliability of a verdict by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), citing testimonies by elements who later confessed or were proven to have attempted to mislead the STL.
“Israel boasts that it is the major influence in determining the paths of investigation in the international tribunal,” Qaouq said.
The Hezbollah official stated that the issuance of indictments by the STL will “put Lebanon on the path of political mines and booby traps planted by America and Israel, through which they want to drag Lebanon into an abyss.”
Rafiq Hariri was murdered on February 14, 2005, when his vehicle was targeted in Beirut by a massive bombing attack which also killed 22 other people.
Western-backed factions and figures rushed to accuse Hezbollah and Syria of involvement in the murder, but Damascus and the resistance movement vehemently rejected the allegations.
In September, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri acknowledged that he made a mistake when he accused Syria of being behind the murder of his father and said the move “was a political accusation.”
——–Agencies