Parliament's legislative session witnessed Tuesday a verbal clash between Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri and MP Jamil al-Sayyed who is close to Hizbullah and Damascus.

The confrontation erupted when Hariri was talking about loans related to the CEDRE Lebanon support conference.

MP Jamil al-Sayyed lashed out Wednesday at Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, noting that he is “not a statesman.”

“More than two weeks ago, I said that foreign forces were forbidding Hariri from forming the government, and I mentioned in the tweet that I would apologize to Hariri should he form the government within two weeks! The time has passed and he has not dared to form it,” al-Sayyed tweeted.

Syrian President Bashar Assad met Sunday with former Lebanese General Security chief Maj. Gen. Jamil Sayyed, who said talks tackled the “cleaning” of Syrian areas near Lebanon's border from “terrorists” to pave the ground for greater “coordination” with the Lebanese Army.

A statement issued by Sayyed's office said the two-hour meeting in the morning touched on “the outcome of the Syrian army's military operations in terms of cleaning Syrian areas adjacent to the Lebanese border in Akkar and the Bekaa from terrorist groups.”

The Marshall Islands have withdrawn their nomination of a former General Security chief Maj. Gen. Jamil Sayyed to the UNESCO, a well-placed diplomatic source told Agence France Presse on Wednesday.

Sayyed, spent four years in prison on suspicion of involvement in the 2005 murder of the former prime minister Rafik Hariri. He denies any involvement and claims to have been subjected to arbitrary detention.

The Marshall Islands have nominated former Lebanese General Security chief Maj. Gen. Jamil Sayyed, who was detained in connection with ex-premier Rafik Hariri's assassination, as their envoy to UNESCO, the U.N. agency said Monday.

The move could see Sayyed given immunity from prosecution as the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon looks into the Hariri case.

The Hague - Naharnet Feature

Former General Security chief Jamil al-Sayyed did not succeed in attaining the goals he had set by attending the opening sessions of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which is probing the assassination of former premier Rafik Hariri.

A source in the general directorate of the Internal Security Forces denied that former General Security chief Maj. Gen. Jamil Sayyed accompanied ex-minister Michel Samaha to Syria to allegedly smuggle explosives to Lebanon.

In remarks to al-Akhbar daily published on Wednesday, the source said MTV station’s report “is not true and the interrogation of Samaha and his bodyguards did not reveal any such thing.”

The head of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s Defense Office Francois Roux warned against measures that may affect the tribunal’s credibility, reported As Safire newspaper on Saturday.

He told the newspaper that the failure to hand former General Security chief Jamil Sayyed documents related to the false witnesses file may harm the STL’s credibility.

The newly-appointed President of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon Judge Sir David Baragwanath stated that the STL does not have jurisdiction in tackling the “so-called false witnesses file.”

He said in his first public statements since assuming his position: “We don’t have jurisdiction to tackle the false witnesses file until the Lebanese government, U.N., and Security Council agree to it.”

The President of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon Judge Sir David Baragwanath will be directly answering questions from Lebanese citizens and journalists on Twitter next week, announced the STL through the social networking website on Friday.

It added that details on the session will be revealed next week.