BEIRUT: Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri responded to Hezbollah’s attack Friday, after Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah accused him of compromising on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon for the sake of staying in power.

“[Nasrallah’s] speech expressed his deep disturbance over funding the international tribunal. The tribunal has been funded and he contributed to that happening,” a statement released by Hariri’s press office said. “[The] speech also expressed, with an unprecedented bitterness, his unlimited infuriation at Saad Hariri.”

Nasrallah accused Hariri Thursday of compromising on the issue of the STL in a bid to retain the post of prime minister earlier this year. He also portrayed Hariri as having no interest in the stability or security of Lebanon.

Nasrallah was addressing supporters via video link following the decision to finally provide the STL – a court that has accused Hezbollah members of assassinating statesman Rafik Hariri – with funding for 2011.

During the televised speech, Nasrallah showed documents that he claimed were an agreement, prepared by Qatari and Turkish officials last year, to settle the issue of the tribunal in return for Hariri maintaining his position as prime minister.

“The agreement stipulated that Saad Hariri would cut the tribunal’s funding, withdraw Lebanese judges from the court, and terminate ... the protocol which binds Lebanon and the court ... in return for handing over the country to Hariri and his allies,” Nasrallah said.

Hariri denied Nasrallah’s accusations, describing them as false and saying that such claims reveal that Hezbollah is disturbed by Hariri’s political status.

“The question on every Lebanese citizen’s mind, especially Hezbollah supporters’ minds, is how could Hezbollah’s leadership, its secretary-general and the Shura Council, justify funding the tribunal they claim to be Israeli?” Hariri asked.

“Isn’t it logical for them to say that funding the tribunal ... is a national treason which requires the Lebanese judiciary to prosecute whoever supported it?”

Nasrallah’s speech came a day after Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced he had transferred Lebanon’s share of the tribunal’s funding which amounted to $32.6 million. Political sources told The Daily Star the money came from the budget of the prime minister’s office and was paid through the Higher Relief Committee.

In late June, weeks after Mikati formed his Cabinet, the tribunal indicted four Hezbollah members accused of involvement in the assassination of Rafik Hariri.

The party had denied allegations, saying the four suspects would never be apprehended

Hezbollah has accused the U.N.-backed court of being a “U.S.-Israeli” tool aimed at targeting the resistance and sowing sectarian strife in Lebanon. The resistance group and its allies in the March 8 coalition, which holds a majority in Mikati’s Cabinet, have warned that they would block any attempt to fund the tribunal through the government. Nasrallah also accused March 14 in particular and the Future Movement in general of seeking to instigate sectarian strife in Lebanon, a charge denied by Hariri’s office.

“Sayyed Hasan appeared very upset by the Future Movement and by the political campaigns of the movement’s MPs, to which he tried to give a religious and sectarian aspect, thereby denying the fact that they are national positions that express the rejection by a large number of Lebanese of the hegemony of the weapons,” the statement said. “His focus on what he claims to be a sectarian aspect of the political and popular movements in both Lebanon and Syria, and linking them in a pure sectarian frame, are words that we refuse and will not find in the Arab Spring people who will believe them.”