Now Lebanon - Najjar calls Hariri’s STL position advanced - September 7, 2010

Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar told LBCI television on Tuesday that Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s statements to As-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper are advanced.

The minister added that he will not discuss the issue of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s (STL) false witnesses in the media.

In an interview with As-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper published on Monday, Hariri said that accusations that Syria was behind the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri were political in nature.

Some people misled the STL’s investigation and thereby damaged Syrian-Lebanese relations and politicized the assassination, Hariri also said.

The cabinet delegated Najjar on August 18 to follow up on the issue of the tribunal’s false witnesses.

Najjar also said that political parties did not provide any political cover for the perpetrators of the August 24 Bourj Abi Haidar clashes. Three people died in the fighting in the Bourj Abi Haidar area of Beirut between supporters of Hezbollah and those of the Sunni group Al-Ahbash.

On Monday, Government Commissioner to the Military Court Judge Saqr Saqr charged 84 people, including 22 detainees, for involvement in the Beirut clashes.