 Saudi Arabia, with close ties to assassinated former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri, took issue Tuesday with French calls for an international probe into his death, saying Tehran's Damascus' Beirut's own judiciary is capable of doing the job. | "And for the love of Allan, keep the Americans far far away." |
"The Lebanese people will be the one to protect the integrity of the investigation in this crime," said Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal after a meeting with his visiting French counterpart, Michel Barnier. Billionaire Hariri made his fortune in the construction business in Saudi Arabia, where he maintained close ties with the royal family, and he held dual Lebanese-Saudi citizenship. The circumstances of his murder in an apparent suicide car bombing Monday are still unclear, but a shadowy group claimed it had killed Hariri because he was a Saudi "agent." Referring to that, Prince Saud said: "This is silly, as the operation is a crime against the Lebanese people and against Lebanon before anyone else. Hariri's assassination targets Lebanon and the Lebanese people before anything else. Lebanon is an independent state with an independent judiciary," he told reporters after meeting with Barnier. "Let us wait for what the Lebanese judiciary has to say over this crime." | And then perhaps wait some more... |
The prince added that Hariri "was a personal friend of mine before being an official, and I do not think that Lebanon could compensate" for his loss. "The (Saudi) kingdom will not give up on its commitment toward Lebanon and its assistance to it," he said. | "Just as long as it remembers who's in charge." |
Saudi Arabia has been a main donor for Lebanon's reconstruction since the 1975-1990 civil war ended. French President Jacques Chirac's office has called for an international inquiry into the blast in downtown Beirut that claimed the life of Hariri and 14 others. | But I thought France had that special understanding with the Arabs... |
Barnier echoed that, insisting on "an international inquiry which will ... be based on justice and the means of the Lebanese justice because we want to know the truth. Everyone has the right to know the truth on this attempt, firstly the Lebanese people and then the entire international community," said Barnier. He said "we are expecting this inquiry to be promptly carried out in order to establish the responsibilities," he said. He added that the "international inquiry ... is the subject of discussions that we are now holding with" UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Barnier, who later left Saudi Arabia, also said France was "actively working ... for the rapid adoption of a UN Security Council presidential declaration recalling the international community's attachment to the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of Lebanon." |
