April 9,2010 - Daily Star - Mirza calls for death penalty in Behsas case.doc

BEIRUT: State Prosecutor Saeed Mirza demanded Thursday the death penalty for a Lebanese, Saudi, and seven Palestinians for “undermining state security” by blowing up of a bus carrying Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) members on September 2008 in Tripoli.
Mirza asked the Investigative Magistrate in charge of the case Nabil Sahari to charge Lebanese Abdel-Ghani Jawhar, Palestinians Khaled al-Jaber, Mohammad Azzam, Osama al-Shihabi, Ghazi Abdallah, Abdel-Rahman Awad, Alaa Mehrez, Hamza Kassem, and Saudi citizen Obeid al-Kufeil Nabil Abdel-Rahman for the deliberate killing and committing of terrorist acts undermining security, crimes that are punishable by death. Mirza called Sahari to issue arrest warrants against the perpetrators and refer them to Beirut’s Justice council for trial.
He also ordered banning the trial of 30 accused individuals for the lack of enough evidence of involvement or membership in the Fatah al-Islam militant group. He also asked for suspending the search for 20 individuals and recalling their outstanding arrest warrants.
Facts revealed that Jawhar purposely detonated the LAF bus in the Behsas neighborhood of Tripoli killing four LAF members, two civilians, and wounding a large number of both.
It turned out that Jabr, Azzam and Kufeil assisted Jawhar in preparing the bomb in Jabr’s house in al-Biddawi Palestinian camp in north Lebanon. Jabr also helped Jawhar in placing the bomb in the motorcycle which Jawhar rode to the crime scene. Jabr, Azzam, Kufeil and Jawhar were also involved in an explosion targeting LAF members and civilians in Tripoli two months before the Behsas crime.
A devastating explosion ripped through a bus packed with LAF soldiers in the Behsas area of Tripoli late September 2008, killing four LAF members, two civilians and wounding at least 33 others. Two months earlier, a similar explosion targeted LAF members in Tripoli killing and wounding several soldiers and civilians. – The Daily Star