Judge Dismisses Lawsuit against Sabhan to Protect 'National Interest'

A Lebanese judge on Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed against a Saudi minister, saying it would harm the country's “higher national interest.”

“Beirut First Examining Magistrate Ghassan Oueidat has issued a ruling in which he decided not to proceed with the lawsuit filed by liberated captive Nabih Hussein Awada via his lawyer Hassan Bazzi against Saudi State Minister for Gulf Affairs Thamer al-Sabhan,” the National News Agency said.

The filed lawsuit “contradicts with the higher national interest and the state's policy and (Lebanese) courts do no have the jurisdiction to look into international disputes and relations,” the judge said in his ruling.

Oueidat had on Tuesday accepted to look into the lawsuit.

Al-Sabhan was in charge of the Lebanon file during Prime Minister Saad Hariri's resignation crisis. Media reports said he was replaced after the crisis.

In the dismissed lawsuit, Awada, who had served time in Israeli prisons, accuses the Saudi minister of “sowing discord among the Lebanese, inciting them to strife and disrupting Lebanon's ties with a foreign state.”

The fiercely anti-Iran minister has been suspected of playing a key role in the hurried and ultimately unsuccessful resignation of Hariri in November.

For days before Hariri's surprise resignation, which the kingdom is widely believed to have orchestrated, al-Sabhan issued threats against Lebanon's government as well as Iran and its ally Hizbullah via Twitter, unnerving many Lebanese who feared being dragged into the forefront of the Saudi-Iranian rivalry.

On Twitter, al-Sabhan had referred to the Iranian-backed Hizbullah — which means "Party of God" in Arabic — as the "Party of Satan."

A few days before Hariri's resignation, al-Sabhan warned in an interview with Lebanon's MTV that there would be "astonishing" developments to “topple” Hizbullah. He also said that Lebanon's government — headed by Hariri — would be dealt with as a hostile government that's declared war against Saudi Arabia because of Hizbullah's power-sharing role.

"It is up to (Lebanon's) leaders to decide whether it is a state of terror or peace," al-Sabhan wrote on Twitter two days after Hariri's resignation. Mediation by France, a close ally of both Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, helped reverse the resignation and return Hariri to his post.