Hezbollah dismisses allegations in Hariri assassination

BEIRUT — Hezbollah on Sunday rejected potentially explosive allegations in a German magazine that it was responsible for the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a leader of Lebanon’s Sunni Muslim community.

Citing an unnamed source close to the United Nations tribunal investigating the killing, Der Spiegel published a report Saturday saying that operatives with ties to Hezbollah’s leadership were emerging as the primary suspects in the car bombing that killed Hariri.

The Shiite militant group released a statement Sunday rejecting the report, which comes two weeks before Lebanon’s parliamentary elections, as baseless. The group noted that a Kuwaiti newspaper recently published similar allegations.

“It’s not the first time that a magazine or newspaper aimed at publishing such fabrications,” read a statement on the website of Hezbollah’s Al Manar television station. “It is nothing more than police fabrications cooked in the same black room that has been keen on fabricating such narratives for over four years.”

Spokespersons for both the tribunal and for Hariri’s son, parliamentary leader Saad Hariri, declined to comment.

“We do not comment on any information unless it is officially released by the tribunal,” said Hani Hammoud, an aide to Hariri, the heir to his father’s political network.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the report should lead to the arrest of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, which has been engaged in a decades-long fight against Israel.

“An international arrest warrant must be issued for Nasrallah, and he must stand trial,” the far-right politician said before the weekly Cabinet meeting, news agencies said.

Accusations that Hezbollah had a hand in Hariri’s death might disrupt the delicate sectarian and political balance of the volatile country as it heads into crucial elections June 7.

Hezbollah and its Christian and leftist allies are facing off against a pro-Western alliance led by Hariri’s son in a rivalry that has stoked Sunni-Shiite sectarian passions.

The elder Hariri was popular among most Lebanese groups. Nasrallah and the former prime minister maintained strong, cordial ties.

Rather than Hezbollah, most Lebanese believe Syria ordered Hariri killed to maintain its then-slipping control over Lebanon, an accusation Damascus has vehemently denied. The strong public backlash after the assassination eventually forced Syria to pull its troops out of Lebanon.

A tribunal judge last month ordered the release of the only detained suspects, four pro-Syrian Lebanese army officers, for lack of evidence.

The Spiegel report, by a well-regarded investigative reporter, said Lebanese investigators analyzing cellphone usage in the vicinity of the explosion lucked into a discovery.

According to Der Spiegel’s source, one set of cellphones was used exclusively by a circle of people believed behind the attack. They talked only to each other -- except once, when a suspect used one of the phones to call his girlfriend.

Investigators determined the operative was one Abdul Majid Ghamlush, described in the Spiegel report as an alleged Iranian-trained member of a Hezbollah “special forces” unit. The report then goes on to link him to higher-ups in Hezbollah, including a commander named Hajj Salim, who purportedly answers to Nasrallah.

But the story raises questions. It alludes to “documents” to bolster its claims, but they are neither described nor shown in the report.

The report also leaves aside questions regarding the motivations of the leaker. The revelations come not just before the elections but also as Israel and the U.S. are moving to coax Syria away from Iran and Hezbollah and as Arab states are striving to stop Hezbollah’s rising popularity in the region.

In its statement Sunday, Hezbollah said the Spiegel report was aimed at influencing the outcome of the parliamentary vote and to “deflect attention from the news about the dismantling of spy networks working for Israel.”

Officials, cooperating with Hezbollah, have recently arrested a string of suspects who allegedly spied for Israel.

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