Now Lebanon - Political compromise over STL funding is unacceptable, Jarrah says - September 16, 2010

“[Any] political compromise at the expense of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) is totally unacceptable,” Lebanon First bloc MP Jamal al-Jarrah said in a press conference on Thursday after the Parliamentary Finance and Budget commission failed to approve the 2010 state budget’s STL funding clause.

March 14 MPs tried to postpone a vote on the clause or send it to parliament’s general session, but they were obliged to walk out of the commission’s Thursday evening session once March 8 MPs insisted on voting, Jarrah said.

He said that until now the commission has waited to vote on clauses until consensus was reached, and March 14 MPs had hoped to discuss the Justice Ministry’s budget – including the clause about STL funding – in the same way.

The commission has already discussed and approved other budget items on which advances were spent beforehand, he added.

On Monday, Finance Minister Rayya al-Hassan told NOW Lebanon that the payment of the country’s share of STL funding was made “based on a special decree approved on February 23 by the national-unity government … which gave the Justice Ministry an advance worth around 40 billion LL.”

Jarrah said that if March 8 MPs produce any tangible evidence to support their claim that the STL is an American-Israeli project, he himself will stand against it.

He also said it was “dangerous” that during the session a March 8 leader, whom he did not name, said that “we gave a time period until September, and this period has ended. We will deal [from now on] in a different way with the STL: no facilitation, approval, or funding.”

MTV reported Thursday that Loyalty to the Resistance bloc MP Hassan Fadlallah said during the session that parliament should abolish the STL before the end of September, otherwise “the matter [will be] very dangerous.”

-NOW Lebanon