Daily Star - Geagea: 'STL will continue until justice is served' - September 13, 2010

BEIRUT: Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said Friday that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon would continue to exist until justice is served.

Geagea made his statement before a delegation of LF students who graduated from universities this year, in response to Hizbullah’s condemnation of the STL as an Israeli project.

“The STL will continue until justice is served since a right will not die if someone continues to demand it,” Geagea said.

Addressing the ongoing debate between March 14 parties and Hizbullah over the issue of false witnesses, Geagea said that such classifications could not be made before the STL’s indictment is issued.

“No one can discuss the issue of false witnesses before the indictment is issued and before investigations are made public while it is unacceptable that one threatens the other under any pretext,” Geagea said.

Geagea was referring to demands by Hizbullah officials to investigate false witnesses, as well as the party’s calls on the Lebanese judiciary to assume its responsibility in that regard.

The LF chief also stressed the strength of the March 14 coalition and its persistence in achieving its objectives – an indirect reference to media reports claiming a rift in the alliance between the Future Movement and the LF following Hariri’s latest remarks to the pan-Arab daily Ash-Sharq al-Awsat.

Hariri stressed that false witnesses who “mislead investigations did harm to Syrian-Lebanese ties by politicizing the murder,” while adding that the Lebanese judiciary was in charge of investigating the issue.

But Hariri distanced the STL’s course from that of the former UN committee that investigated witnesses who recanted later their testimonies.

“I do not want to talk much about the STL but I will only say that the court has its course that is not related to previous hasty political accusations,” Hariri said, in reference to previous accusations against Damascus.

March 14 parties widely blamed Damascus for former Premier Rafik Hariri’s assassination. The accusations forced Damascus, under domestic and international pressure – and in accordance with UN Resolution 1559 – into withdrawing its troops from Lebanon, ending 29 years of military presence.

“The March 14 Forces will continue to exist in all its components despite all changing circumstances and the ‘Cedar Revolution’ is ongoing till all its goals are achieved,” Geagea said, using the name coined by a US State Department official for the Independence Intifada that erupted in 2005 after Hariri’s killing.

He added that “this is not a slogan or a wish but facts.”

He also condemned recent deadly clashes between elements of Hizbullah and the Association of Islamic Charitable Projects, or Al-Ahbash as an attempt to instigate strife. – The Daily Star