April 1, 2010 - Daily Star - Nasrallah: STL will win back trust when perjurers tried

Hizbullah chief says 12 members summoned as witnesses

BEIRUT: A UN team investigating the 2005 murder of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri has questioned members of Hizbullah, the party’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah said Wednesday. “In the past few weeks the prosecutor’s office in Beirut contacted a number of our brothers, some of them members of Hizbullah and others close to the party, and requested they come in for questioning,” Nasrallah said in an interview with Hizbullah’s Al-Manar television. “They called in 12 of our brothers in recent weeks, and I believe they are now in the process of summoning six more,” he added. The Hague-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon was set up by a UN Security Council resolution in 2007 to try suspects in the murder of Hariri, who was killed in a massive bomb blast on the Beirut seafront in February 2005. In its first annual report published in March, the tribunal said investigators were getting closer to identifying the suicide bomber who carried out the attack.But Nasrallah said his party was not currently in the tribunal’s line of fire. “Representatives of the prosecutor’s office guaranteed us that all those being questioned were called in as witnesses, and not as suspects, at a semi-official meeting with representatives of Hizbullah,” he added. “The prosecutor’s office until now has not accused any Hizbullah member. But we don’t know what could happen in the future,” he added. None of those questioned were public figures, Nasrallah said, adding that the tribunal had also questioned male and female party members in previous years. However, Nasrallah doubted the credibility of the STL, saying the resistance would continue to cooperate with investigators but only if the court’s work proved to be on the right track away from politicization attempts. “We will cooperate to challenge misleading investigations rather than because of trust,” Nasrallah said. “We have not yet been accused and we are being attacked; what if we do not cooperate?” he asked in reference to the media reports claiming Hizbullah’s involvement in the murder. “Any investigation committee should be committed to the investigation’s secrecy which was not the case given the media leaks … also, the committee only adopted one scenario while dismissing many others, proving its unprofessionalism,” he said. “All those matters make us doubt the honesty and credibility of the investigations,” he said. Nasrallah added that any accusations of Hizbullah would be considered Israeli demands. However, he stressed that the investigation committee could regain trust and restore its image by halting media leaks and trying witnesses who committed perjury. “Some of our brothers and sisters were questioned at the end of 2008, after the events of May 7,” he said, referring to street battles that broke out in the Lebanese capital Beirut on May 7, 2008, pitting supporters of a Hizbullah-led alliance to those of a rival camp loyal to Hariri’s son, Saad Hariri, an MP and now prime minister. The Hariri murder has been widely blamed on Syria, a main backer of Hizbullah. Damascus has denied any involvement. A UN commission of inquiry said it had found evidence to implicate Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services prior to the tribunal’s formation, but there are currently no suspects in custody. Nasrallah added that discussions on the US-Lebanese security agreement were not aimed at the Internal Security Forces but rather that his party had certain reservations on the issue. He refused to take part in the debate but warned that some aspects of th agreement were dangerous. He challenged claims that the US program comprised of unconditional donations, saying that it embraced comittments from both sides. Nasrallah added that the agreement constituted a means for the US to interfere in the affairs of the security institution. – AFP, with The Daily Star