MPs Row Escalates Heated Wire Tapping
The Parliamentary committee on media and communications on Thursday decided to form a team that would investigate charges of illegal wiretapping of calls.
Committee Chairman MP Hassan Fadlallah said the committee would resume its tackling of the thorny issue next Thursday and explained that commanders of security agencies would take part in the session.
"Discussions are not over yet. Parliament would follow up the issue until agreement is reached. We have calls for a meeting by the joint parliamentary commissions and there is a unanimous call for the formation of a parliamentary investigation committee," Fadlallah told reporters after the meeting.
Fadlallah, a member of Hizbullah, charged that "some security agencies illegally ask for data." He did not elaborate on the remark.
However, MP Marwan Hamade, said data related to certain crimes had been "withheld. The military intelligence directorate was not provided with data related to certain attacks."
Sources said a row developed during the meeting between MP Nabil Nicola of the Change and reform bloc and MP Antoine Andraous of the Democratic Gathering bloc.
Andraous was asking Fadlallah to call for a joint meeting by parliamentary committees to tackle the wiretapping issue when Nicola intervened in the dialogue to reject the call.
"I am not talking to you," Andraous told Nicola and the latter responded by hurling a bottle of water at the Democratic Gathering MP, the sources said.
"It was a heated and noisy debate," the source added.