Now Lebanon - Wahhab: STL will not be funded, October 19, 2011

Arab Tawhid Party leader Wiam Wahhab said in an interview published on Wednesday that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), which is investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, will not be funded, “whether they like it or not.”
“The STL’s missions are pure political and it will not be funded,” Wahhab told Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Anbaa, adding that “postponing the state draft budget’s discussions in order to avoid the STL funding clause will not be the wise thing to do.”
He also said that “President Michel Sleiman and Prime Minister Najib Mikati will have to yield to the decision of the majority of the ministers regarding the STL,” adding that “Mikati’s personal interests made him commit to the STL funding before the UN Security Council.”
Wahhab also said that “the government will not be able to accomplish much, and is just passing time.”
The Hezbollah-led March 8 parties – which currently dominate Lebanon’s cabinet – have opposed a clause in the Lebanese annual state budget pertaining to the funding of the UN-backed court, while Prime Minister Najib Mikati has repeatedly voiced Lebanon’s commitment to the tribunal.
Four Hezbollah members have been indicted by the STL in the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. However, the Shia group strongly denied the charges and refuses to cooperate with the court.
Wahhab also said that “the developments in Syria and the politicized US accusations against Iran are only the beginning of the [storm] that the US is preparing for the [Middle Eastern] region.”
The United States said on October 11 it had busted a plot conceived at high levels of Iran's revolutionary leadership to kill the Saudi envoy to Washington in a major terror attack, and vowed to hold Tehran to account. Later in the day it announced measures against five individuals allegedly connected to the plot.
Iran has fiercely denied any involvement in the thwarted assassination plot.
US President Barack Obama has vowed Iran will "pay a price" for what he says is incontrovertible proof it had a hand in trying to contract a Mexican drug cartel to carry out the hit.