Naharnet Newsdesk - Defense Minister Murr Suggests Syria's Ghazaleh May have Engineered 'My Attempted Assassination'

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Defense Minister Murr Suggests Syria's Ghazaleh May have Engineered 'My Attempted Assassination'

Defense Minister Elias Murr, long an ally of Syria like his father-in-law President Lahoud, has detonated a bombshell by suggesting for the first time that Syria's former intelligence chief Rustom Ghazaleh may have engineered the abortive attempt to assassinate him 3 months ago.
Murr chose the LBCI network of May Chidiac, who survived an assassination bomb that chopped off her left hand and left leg on Sunday, to make his dramatic accusation by telephone from Zurich, where he is recuperating from injuries he suffered in the car-bomb explosion that he miraculously escaped July 12.

"A problem had developed between me and Syria's representative in Lebanon (Ghazaleh) the day a terrorist network preparing to bomb the Italian embassy was uncovered, triggering anti-government riots in Majdal Anjar and the death of a detainee in jail," Murr narrated.

"A verbal quarrel flared between myself and Ghazaleh after he had called Brig. Gen. Saeed Eid, commander of Lebanon's gendarmerie, at 3 a.m. before dawn to tongue-lash me a year ago," Murr said during a Marcel Ghanem talk show on LBCI dedicated Monday night to Chidiac's assassination attempt.

"I immediately called Rustom Ghazaleh and took the necessary stance out of my conviction that a non-Lebanese officer should not be allowed under any pretext to scold a Lebanese officer," said Murr, who then was Vice Premier and Interior Minister.

"General Eid, who was listening on my call to Rustom Ghazaleh, told me 'it's time for you to pack and go home,'" he said.

"I was informed afterwards that moves were set in motion against me through Syrian workers who clashed with a Lebanese group. I later got wind about threats against me personally," Murr continued his narrative.

"In January of 2005, I left Lebanon because the security services were not interested in protecting me and stayed away until I was appointed vice premier and defense minister in Premier Mikati's government and then the current government," he added.

Obviously justifying the long delay in making his revelation, Murr said May Chidiac's murder attempt made him incapable of keeping silent any longer. "I say now that we're all alike," Murr said, addressing Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh, who also miraculously escaped a car-bomb assassination attempt Oct. 1.

Hamadeh, a staunch foe of Syria, was on Ghanem's Kalam el Nass talk show Monday night. He emphatically maintained what he called the axis of Damascus-Baabda-Moukhabarat tunnels were behind Chidiac's attempted assassination and all other murder attempts and assassinations "since the attempt on my life nearly a year ago."

Beirut, 27 Sep 05, 09:08


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