April 1, 2010 - Naharnet - Nasrallah: STL Summoned 12 Hizbullah Members, Supporters, We'll Cooperate with Investigation to Alter its Wrong Tracks

Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday confirmed that the Office of the Prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon summoned around 12 individuals who are Hizbullah members or supporters, revealing that "it is about to summon 6 others."
"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 interrogation," Nasrallah said in an interview with the Hizbullah-affiliated al-Manar television.

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 interrogated were called in as witnesses, and not as suspects, at a semi-official meeting with representatives of Hizbullah," Nasrallah said.

"Several people were summoned before but no similar uproar was raised," he added.

Nasrallah revealed that a Hizbullah cultural department official was summoned in addition to a jihadist official "who was a companion of martyr Khaled Awali."

"We don't have any information about summoning any Hizbullah top official and everything is possible," Nasrallah added.

"It's possible that there's a relation between the investigation and political accusation, but everything being circulated now is unbased political accusation.

"Accusing Hizbullah started with the French Le Figaro daily which was followed by the German Der Spiegel and then by the Kuwaiti As Siyasah."

Nasrallah warned that "accusing individual members of our party is equivalent to accusing Hizbullah."

"That would take Lebanon to a very difficult place," he added.

"We will not remain silent if we find we are facing political accusations," Nasrallah warned.

Nasrallah reminisced that the July war aimed at eliminating "the resistance and those who support it and at changing the demography in Lebanon, especially in the South."

"Accusing members from the resistance of being involved in assassinating (ex-PM Rafik) Hariri is the final card in the attempts at targeting the resistance.

"Speaking in political salons indicates that the investigation intends to issue indictments against a number of Hizbullah members."

The Hague-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon was set up by a U.N. Security Council resolution in 2007 to find and 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.

Tension has been brewing in Lebanon after a flurry of press reports said the U.N. court was readying to accuse Hizbullah operatives in the Hariri murder.

But the tribunal said the reports were "mere speculation" in a statement last week.

Nasrallah called on STL Prosecutor Danielle Bellemare to shoulder the responsibility of stopping media leaks and urged him to be "vigilant" in this regard.

"All the events of the previous years have not been able to shake Hizbullah and the idea of eliminating it is a chimera," Hizbullah number one stressed.

"Trying to undermine the image of Hizbullah's top leader Imad Mughniyeh is an attempt at pressuring us or at sealing a deal with us," he added.

"Political accusation almost pushed the region to a catastrophe; hence, we will respond to any accusation because major repercussions will result from such an accusation."

On the other hand, Nasrallah said he does not believe that President Michel Suleiman called for national dialogue in response to the meeting that gathered him to the Syrian and Iranian presidents in Damascus.