Beirut: Three years after the August 23, 2013 simultaneous bombings of Al Taqwa and Al Salam mosques in Tripoli that left 42 individuals dead and more than 600 injured, Judge Alaa Al Khatib issued a detailed indictment of two Syrian intelligence officers who apparently supervised the operations.
This condemnation is a first for the Lebanese judiciary, given that senior magistrates seldom complete their investigation due to political pressure.
Judge Al Khatib identified the two Syrians by name — Mohammad Ali Ali, a captain serving in the Military Intelligence Brigade 235, also known as the Palestine Branch, and Nasser Juban, an official in the Political Security Division.
Arrest warrants for the two suspects were duly issued along with the establishment of a permanent investigation cell to uncover the identities of any senior officials who may have given orders and orchestrated the attack, whether they were foreign nationals or Lebanese citizens.
Al Khatib, who delivered his 44-page report to Minister of Justice Ashraf Rifi, clarified that his investigations led to the orders that were issued by a senior security branch in the Syrian Intelligence, though he refrained to reveal that individual’s name.
Five Lebanese suspects were also indicted although only one suspect was charged for the crime, Yousuf Diab — who hails from Tripoli’s Jabal Mohsen — was arrested.
The magistrate turned his attention to the purported role of the Alawite Arab Democratic Party (ADP) in the attack, especially its leader Ali Diab, who was summoned for questioning on several occasions but who fled to Damascus where he apparently died in 2015.
Rifi called on the government of Lebanon to expel the Syrian ambassador, Ali Abdul Karim Ali, and to sever diplomatic ties with Damascus.
“The accusatory decision lays out in detail how the bombing was committed,” he announced during a news conference, and “in that respect, I request that the Cabinet expel the Syrian ambassador and sever diplomatic ties with Syria ... this is the request of the families of the martyrs.”
He added: “The times of Syrian tutelage are gone and will not be coming back. The threats of the Syrian regime will not scare us.”
Rifi also blasted Lebanese officials for cooperating with Syria in the Tripoli plot and despite some officials who have fled the country, he vowed that the case was “far from over”.
Former Prime Minister Sa‘ad Hariri, son of assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, said the indictment proved the direct involvement of the Syrian regime.
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon, investigating Syrian and Hezbollah involvement in his father’s murder in 2004, however, has yet to arrest the culprits who remain at large.
