Row on Telecom Data Threatens Sehnaoui’s Seat in Cabinet
Telecommunications Minister Nicolas Sehnaoui has turned down several requests to provide telecom data to security services, putting the country in an “information blindness” that risks holding him legally accountable, security sources and MP Marwan Hamadeh said.
The sources that are investigating the assassination attempt on Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea told An Nahar daily on Saturday that Sehnaoui has so far refused to meet the request of handing over the telephone communications information to the agencies probing the attack.
The minister has also turned down six similar requests in the past months in the investigation of a Salafist network that was planning attacks on the army, kidnappings of teenagers in the Bekaa valley and planned attacks on Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi and the head of the ISF Intelligence Branch Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, the sources said.
About Sehnaoui’s referral of the requests to a competent judicial authority, the sources said that the judiciary argues it cannot decide before the wiretapping command center begins operating.
Their comments came as opposition March 14 MP Hamadeh warned Sehnaoui that he would be held legally and legislatively accountable and lawmakers could withdraw their vote of confidence if he continued to ignore the requests on the telecom data.
“The law prevented wiretapping and organized it but it didn’t prohibit the security and the judiciary from seeing the telecom data as is done in all other countries to investigate crimes,” Hamadeh said.
But Sehnaoui said in remarks to Beirut media on Friday that the decision to withhold data was taken by the cabinet after it agreed that a final decision by a judicial committee is necessary.
He reiterated that his ministry can’t provide all the data, which covers around 3 million phone subscribers, because this would mean an infringement on individual freedom.
Meanwhile, the investigation continued into the assassination attempt on Geagea, who said in remarks published in An Nahar that the effects of the Doha agreement ended when a sniper or several perpetrators fired on him from a nearby forest as he was walking in the garden of his fortified residence in Maarab.
The LF chief did not rule out the use of rockets in future killings.
“They have decided to (carry out) assassinations to alter the balance of power,” he said, without specifying who is behind the planned attacks.
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