Hizbullah Rejects Link to Hariri Murder
Lebanon”s Hizbullah on Sunday dismissed a German magazine report that a U.N. commission believed the Shiite militant group was behind the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
"This is a pure fabrication aimed at influencing the election campaign and to deflect attention from the news about the dismantling of spy networks working for Israel," a Hizbullah statement said.
Germany”s Der Spiegel reported on Saturday that the U.N. commission probing the Hariri murder had new evidence that Hizbullah special forces "planned and executed" the Beirut car bombing which killed the former billionaire premier and 22 others on Valentine”s Day in 2005.
The report comes just two weeks ahead of a June 7 election in Lebanon that pits the U.S.-backed parliamentary majority against an alliance headed by Hizbullah (the Party of God), which has the support of Syria and Iran.
Since January, Lebanon has charged a total of 18 people with spying for neighboring Israel.
Hizbullah, which fought a devastating 2006 war with Israel, said the Spiegel allegations "harm the credibility" of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) and called on The Hague-based court to act to unmask those behind the "lies."
"This is not the first time that newspapers have resorted to such fabrications," said the Shiite group.
A spokeswoman for the tribunal prosecutor refused on Saturday to comment on the Spiegel report.
"We don”t know where they are getting the story from. The office of the prosecutor doesn”t comment on any issues related to operational aspects of the investigation," she said.
According to Der Spiegel, the Shiite group is implicated through the discovery of two linked networks of mobile phones, all belonging to Hizbullah”s "operational arm."
It says a secret unit of Lebanese security forces, led by intelligence expert Captain Wissam Eid, filtered out the numbers before he was assassinated in January 2008.
A Hizbullah commando unit is also thought to be behind Eid”s killing, Der Spiegel said.
The U.N. investigative commission has said in the past that there was converging evidence that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services were involved in Hariri”s killing.
But Syria has consistently denied any involvement.