Hariri Says Assad is a 'Beast' and Should be Tried as an Assassin
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri described on Wednesday Syrian President Bashar Assad as a “beast,” who should be brought to trial for taking part in assassinations and sending explosives to Lebanon.
“Assad is a beast who has lost humanitarian and political ethics” and will be eventually held accountable by the Syrian people, Hariri said in a statement issued by his press office in response to Syrian arrest warrants issued against him along with al-Mustaqbal bloc MP Oqab Saqr and Syrian opposition member Louay al-Meqdad on charges of “arming and financing terrorist groups in Syria.”
The Syrian president “will also definitely appear before the Lebanese judiciary for he has participated in premeditated assassination and terrorism operations, and has sent explosives to ignite strife among the Lebanese,” the al-Mustaqbal movement chief said.
Assad will be brought to trial for “bloodshed in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq and for killing children and massacring the Syrian people, he added.
Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said the Interpol’s office at the Internal Security Forces received the warrants on Tuesday, almost two weeks after OTV and al-Akhbar newspapers aired and published audio recordings of Saqr allegedly discussing with a Syrian opposition member ways to supply rebels with arms.
But Saqr later denied the accusations, broadcasting the original audiotapes during a press conference he held in Istanbul in which he claimed he was negotiating the release of Lebanese pilgrims held in Syria.
The Syrian warrants came a day after Lebanon's military tribunal called for Syrian security official Ali Mamlouk, an officer identified as Brig. Gen. Adnan and Assad's senior advisor Buthaina Shaaban to be summoned over their role in ex-minister Michel Samaha's plot to transfer explosives to Lebanon to carry out terrorist attacks aimed at igniting strife.
Mamlouk and Adnan have already been charged along with Samaha with plotting the attacks. The warrant says Shaaban should be summoned as a witness.
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