Former Lebanon PM Hariri: Hezbollah Indictments A 'Historic Moment'

Former Lebanon Prime Minister Saad Hariri, son of Rafik Hariri, lauded the indictments handed to Hezbollah officials by the UN-backed tribunal probing Hariri's 2005 assassination, calling it a "historic moment."

The handover of the indictments to Lebanese prosecutor general Saeed Mirza was made during a meeting with three judges from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which has given Lebanon 30 days to respond.

Saad Hariri issued a statement shortly after the indictment was handed to Mirza warning the new Hezbollah-led cabinet that it must abide by Lebanon's commitments toward the international tribunal.

The leader of hezbollah will be speaking tomorrow on this issue. He usually does his speeches from his hideout every now and then. My guess is that he will reject the validity of this verdict.
What is interesting, is that supposedly these 4 people named all have connections to Imad Mugniyeh, the guy who was blown up infront of the syrian intelligence building in syria a few years ago i think. If that is the case, then it was the syrians and hezbollah tying up loose ends and laying the blame on israel. The other 4 people named, i wouldnt be surprised if theyre already dead and buried or somewhere in africa or south america where they can stay hidden among various hezbollah operations overseas.
The fact that hariri was the most corrupt individual that lebanon has ever known is a moot point now. This also points the finger that hezbollah carried out the various hit jobs on mostly christian politicians and journalists after the hariri job.
I believe Nasrallah tomorrow will likely reject the verdict, claim he doesnt know who those people are, and challenge anyone in lebanon if they approach the party that they will chop off their hands(as per his usual statements).
I am in Lebanon now, and the streets were a little emptier today than they were yesterday, in what is usually a place where there are 24/7 traffic jams, it is quite unusual. People are wary of going out unless its necessary. As for me, im in a christian region, so its 100% safe over here, no shiite or sunni would dare come with violence on their mind, as it would most likely result in some random person shooting them from their balcony since practically every household is armed.
I will post what is said in his speech tomorrow(at least what i understand from it), in any case I highly doubt I will be remaning in lebanon for as long as I planned. Paris for a couple of weeks is looking like a good idea before I head back home.

As promised I said I would post the gist of what he said in his speech to the Lebanese people tonight. It was fairly long, he spoke on and on for an hour and a half about the conspiracy.

He started by first questioning the validity of the STL.

1) He questioned why were the computers used in the investigation (some 90 computers) transferred from Lebanon to Israel prior to going to the Hague.

2) He mentioned the fact that there have been quite a number (100 or so) people caught in Lebanon spying for Israel, quite a few of them were in the telecoms industry and that the telephone evidence could have easily been fabricated and planted.

3) He showed that every individual involved in the STL is in fact a retired intelligence agent. He included names, pictures, what agencies, when they were active. Among those included, were some CIA(I think one was Robert Baer or something like that and I think they mentioned he was active in beirut in 1985 and had actually tried to kill Imad mugniyeh, and showed an interview robert did in 2010 saying that imad mugniyeh back then was practically impossible to kill because he was like a shadow), french intelligence, german intelligence, australian intelligence. He also pointed out that Antonio Cassesse, the head of the STL, is a very close friend of israel, and showed some video of an ISraeli conference where they praise Cassesse.(Basically saying that he is biased in his views).

4) He showed video evidence, as hezbollah had been spying on the STL, of pay offs occurring, wads of cash being handed over from person to person.

5) Recently, he had a meeting with Saad Hariri(son of Rafic) and some Qatari official. In that meeting Saad gave him a list of demands and that if Nasrallah would accept them and hand power in lebanon to him, that saad would drop the whole tribunal issue. Nasrallah rejected the offer claiming that he has nothing to fear from the tribunal because he didnt do anything.

After that he went on to say that they had no motive to kill hariri because they never were interested in governing or political power, or the financial benefits that come with being a politician in lebanon as they have all the finances they could ever desire and their one aim is to free lebanon from israeli presence and then to free the palestinians.

Then he said that no one would find those 4 people named, and that the March 14(name of the opposition in lebanon) group wouldnt be able to find them or do anything to harm hezbollah. (sort of like a veiled threat) He went on though to say that he does not want a civil war, and the most important thing is to not create tension between sunni and shiite and there might be some elements (a certain part of the christians, i.e the parties called the Lebanese forces and the Kataeb) in the country that would relish a civil war because that is all they understand.

Thats what I got all in all, I would say its pretty accurate account although im probably missing out on alot but thats because my arabic is not so good and was relying on some explanations from my cousins when i lost track.

My take on the speech, is that he did a decent job trying to cast doubt on the whole tribunal although much of what he said is circumstantial really. And that evidence he has on Hariri Jr, saying that he would ignore the death of his father in exchange for power is kind of damning to the reputation of hariri. I say this because his father was already known as a hugely corrupt individual who usurped power from the christians and gave it all to the prime ministers position held by sunnis. One side you have terrorists, the other side you have megalomaniacs who want sunni dominance. In the middle you have the christians who are torn, half of them hate the opposition because its full of corrupt individuals who have bankrupted the country and hariri’ists who want to naturalize the 500k palestinians so they get more sunni votes, and the other half hate hezbollah because they make a target out of lebanon, pledge alliegiance to iran which is treasonous to say the least. Seems like as usual its the christians who lose in lebanon no matter what.

In my opinion the best thing for the people of lebanon would be to eliminate every politician in that country, be it hezbollah and its allies or hariri and his allies, and begin from a clean slate. Its up to the March 14 players what happens next, based on their rhetoric. I think there is a meeting of the leaders of that movement tomorrow in the afternoon. Will update more later.

Sorry if its very messy, I was just typing it all out without really thinking of order, just going along as it came to me. Note: Is it possible that I can make a disclaimer not allowing any reposting or snippets of what I said. Because it has been done once before while I was in lebanon and was posted in an israeli article while I was still in lebanon. lets just say given the content of what was posted i didnt feel so safe anymore :)

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