Al-Mustaqbal: Geagea answers Nasrallah …

On the local scene, head of the Lebanese Forces Samir Geagea said the “Special Tribunal [for Lebanon] has a larger scope than some expect and it extends to any Lebanon we want,” noting that “Mustafa Badreddine is accused until proven otherwise and it is known that he is in the Jihadi council of Hezbollah and enjoys a high level of responsibility, and some say that he is a top military officer [in the organization.]”

Geagea said he believed the indictment, and according to the text of the document, is built on more than just telecommunications data, including witness statements and evidence. Geagea also noted that there was a suicide bomber and that the bomber was not Ahmad Abou Adass, “this proves that there is evidence that is not circumstantial.”

“These facts raise question marks around Hezbollah’s role and its relationship to the what took place and the extent of the Syria involvement and the remainder of the indictment should help clarify this issue.”

Geagea stressed that the current government “could carry on as it is now, for it announced … it will work with the Special Tribuna but Hezbollah is not ready and does not recognize this court, so how can this government continue?”

An-Nahar: Hezbollah denies and Time magazine insists interviewing suspect

The local scene was taken up with the contents of an interview that the American Time magazine conducted with one of the four suspects that belong to Hezbollah. All the while the repercussion from the unsealing of the indictment by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon continues. With these, the government appears in a state of confusion with the Time magazine article in which the suspect said authorities knew where he was but that they did not have the courage to do arrest him.

An-Nahar has learned that Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who was thrown into confusion over the matter, visited Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and urged him to request Hezbollah issue a denial that the interview had taken place because it made the government look incapable of carrying out its obligations with regard to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

Mikati also met Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi and asked him to follow up on the matter. Qortbawi, in a statement, said he had spoken to State Prosecutor Saeed Mirza “who categorically denies” that authorities had knowledge of the whereabouts of the suspects and that they “will launch probes to clarify the situation … to uncover the real identity of the person in the concerned interview.”

In the afternoon, Hezbollah issued a statement in which it stressed “that no responsible official in Hezbollah met with the reporter of TIME magazine … and it appears that the story is a fabrication of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.”

An-Nahar said it received a copy of the email that Future TV managed to obtain, in it was a statement from the editor-in-chief of TIME magazine confirming that the article on Aug. 19, 2011, had been with “one of the Hezbollah suspects.”

Sources that are following up on the issue of the STL said they thought it likely that the Hezbollah suspect who spoke to Nicholas Blanford was Hussein Hassan Oneissi and the interview was conducted sometime in the middle of the week, either Tuesday or Wednesday, in the presence of a non-Lebanese Arabic translator.

Al-Hayat: Saad Hariri: None of those in power object

The Lebanese government, especially Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Justice Mnister Shakib Qortbawi, Interior Minister Marwan Charbel and state prosecutor Saeed Mirza, were busy trying to verify the validity of the TIME magazine article which reported on behalf of one of the suspects involved in the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

The suspect said that the Lebanese authorities knew of his whereabouts, adding that if they wanted to arrest him, they would have done it but they could not. The statement became a source of disturbance for the Lebanese government on all levels to reach extreme embarrassment in front of the international tribunal which would doubt Lebanon’s report regarding the search it had conducted to find the suspects.

Meanwhile, ministerial sources told Al-Hayat that there is a possibility that the Cabinet will agree on the $1.2 billion electricity plan Tuesday if the members of the Cabinet agree on fundamental issues and if the Cabinet can set controls for the funding and the execution of the plan.