Beirut: A key Hezbollah ally yesterday warned that an international indictment of members of the Hezbollah in the killing of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri could lead to new civil strife in Lebanon.
A high-ranking Hezbollah member was among four people named in an indictment by the UN-backed tribunal investigating Hariri's 2005 assassination. The Shiite group denies any role in the killing and has vowed never to turn over any of its members.
Interior Minister Marwan Charbel confirmed the names of the men charged by the Netherlands-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) and said efforts would begin to arrest them.
Confidence vote
He said Lebanon's Prosecutor General Saeed Mirza had given him the arrest warrants early yesterday.
Mustafa Badr Al Deen, Salim Ayyash, Assad Sabra and Hussain Anaissi, whose whereabouts are unknown, are named in the arrest warrants.
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah, has called for a parliamentary vote of confidence on the country's Hezbollah-dominated government on Monday. Hezbollah and its allies form a slight majority in parliament.
Druze leader Walid Junblatt called for stability over justice. He pointed to widespread fears that the case could further divide the country, which has been recovering from decades of bloodshed, including a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990 and recent sectarian battles.
"As much as justice is important for the martyrs and the wounded, so too civil peace and stability is the hoped-for future," he said at a news conference. "Civil peace is more important than anything else."
Meanwhile, the United States called on Lebanon to comply with the tribunal and urged calm amid fears of a Hezbollah backlash. "We call on the government of Lebanon to continue to meet its obligations under international law to support the Special Tribunal," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement.
Clinton called the indictments "an important milestone" that offered "a chance for Lebanon to move beyond its long history of political violence and to achieve the future of peace and stability that the Lebanese people deserve."
