Posted on 07/15/2002 2:00:15 PM PDT by knighthawk
A mediator said he struck an 11th-hour deal for the surrender of an Islamic militant wanted for killing three Lebanese army intelligence agents and holed up in this Palestinian refugee camp.
"After difficult negotiations, we have reached an agreement in principle to hand over the murderer to the concerned parties," Palestinian Islamic mediator Abu Sharif, spokesman for the group Usbat al-Ansar, told reporters.
Abu Sharif said he participated in long negotiations with Sheikh Abdullah Shreidi, leader of a rival group, Usbat al-Nur, which is alleged to be hiding the wanted militant in the Ain Helwe camp of southern Lebanon.
"We need some time" to organize the hand-over, he said after the talks in an Ain Helwe mosque. "We want to spare the camp from problems." Lebanese Interior Minister Elias Murr, meanwhile, warned: "There is no solution but to hand over the murderer. Otherwise, the army will gradually take harsh measures that could lead to closing all the camp's entrances."
Hamade, a Lebanese Shiite militant, is accused by the army of shooting dead three intelligence agents who were tailing him last Thursday and of a spate of bomb attacks on military checkpoints around Ain Helwe, AFP reported.
As tension ran high inside the camp, a small bomb exploded Monday without causing injuries or damage, a camp source said. The blast occurred on a road near an office of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and the home of a member of Hamas, the source said.
MPs, community voices criticize ‘leniency’ on security issues
Politicians continued to denounce on Sunday last week’s killing of three army intelligence personnel, with some blaming the government for its past leniency in security issues connected to Palestinian refugee camps.
The Maronite patriarch, Cardinal Nasrallah Butros Sfeir, strongly condemned the murder of the three soldiers on Thursday outside the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp while attempting to arrest Badih Hamadeh, also known as Abu Obeida.
“The three soldiers … were doing their duty, and they left behind three families that badly need them,” Sfeir said in a Sunday sermon in his summer residence at Diman.
Sfeir said the army, regardless of the religious faith of its members, “is for all of Lebanon,” adding that its soldiers were “ready for self-sacrifice in defense of the country and the pride and dignity of the Lebanese.”
The patriarch blamed the killings on the state’s “leniency regarding similar crimes that took place in the past,” referring to incidents like the killing of four judges in Sidon’s Justice Palace in 1999. The killers are believed to have taken shelter in Ain al-Hilweh.
Hizbullah condemned last week’s killing and called on the state to “bring the situation back under control with the cooperation of all concerned.”
In a statement issued Sunday, Hizbullah called for “closing the book on this matter and preventing it from having repercussions” while at the same time bringing the perpetrators to trial.
Walid Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party, in a statement issued Sunday condemning the killings, urged Palestinian groups to cooperate with the authorities and arrange Hamadeh’s handover, “since any security disturbance in the South or elsewhere would inflict serious damage to Lebanon and the Palestinians.”
But Metn MP Gabriel Murr said Sunday that the state was to blame for allowing the Palestinian refugee camps to exist outside the law’s reach.
“We want the army to spread its power all over the country, from the extreme north to the extreme south without any lawless spots,” he told a local radio station. It is impossible to keep law and order “by arrangement,” and it is impossible to catch criminals “by negotiating” with them or with those sheltering them, according to the MP. The civil war started “this way,” he said, adding that the general political-security situation broke down when the army began to “negotiate with outlaws.”
The Tripoli Parliamentary Gathering MPs Omar Karami, Mohammed Kabbara, Maurice Fadel and Mohammed Safadi called for “decisive measures by the state” but cautioned against “the trap of Lebanese-Palestinian confrontation.”
A wanted Lebanese militant holed up inside a Palestinian refugee camp was handed over Tuesday to the Lebanese army to end days of standoff, the official NNA news agency reported.
The wanted man is accused of killing three Lebanese intelligenceagents last Thursday night near the Ain Helweh refugee camp in the southern city of Sidon.
Lebanese army blocked most of the entrances of the camp with tanks and armored personnel carriers to force the surrender of the culprit.
Lebanese Interior Minister Elias Murr said, "there is no solution but to hand over the murderer. Otherwise, Lebanese army will gradually take harsh measures to close all the camp's entrances."
A Palestinian group called Usbat Al Ansar, or the League of Partisans, Tuesday morning handed over Badieh Hamadeh, also known as Abu Obeida, to a checkpoint of Lebanese army outside the entrance of the camp.
Local reports say Abu Obeida,25, is an activist of Usbat Al Ansar, which is on the US list of international terrorist organizations.
The group was reported to have connection with Osama bin Laden'sAl Qaida network.
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