Security Sources Hammer Bassil, Minister Hits Back
The daily newspaper an-Nahar on Sunday said a senior security source accused Minister of Communications Gebran Bassil of banning security agencies from reviewing telephone calls related to terrorist attacks in north and Mount Lebanon.
The ranking Internal Security Forces (ISF) source also said Bassil asked for copies of all communication review requests presented since the attempt to assassinate Former Minister of Communications Marwan Hamade on Oct. 1, 2004 as well as all communication reviews related to the 2005 assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri.
Such reviews had originally been presented to the U.N. commission probing the Hariri assassination and related crimes, the report noted.
ISF Circles accused Bassil of preventing the Military Intelligence directorate and the ISF counter-terrorism department better known as the Data Branch from obtaining communication reviews related to the May 31, 2008 and Aug. 14, 2008 bomb attacks against the Lebanese Army in Tripoli as well as the car bomb blast that killed Lebanese Democratic Party official Saleh Aridi on Sept. 10.
"Such ban had a major (negative) effect on the security departments” capabilities to carry out their investigations" into the three crimes, the report said.
Bassil, however, described the report as an "accumulation of lies."
"What an-Nahar published today is baseless … these are lies, lies and lies. What is important is what I will say tomorrow," Bassil added.