BEIRUT: A Lebanese Forces MP lashed out Sunday at Sports and Youth Minister Faisal Karami, who had described the party’s leader Samir Geagea as a “criminal” who was “unconstitutionally” released from prison.

LF MP Farid Habib said that criminal charges against Geagea were fabricated during a period when the Syrian intelligence services, along with the Lebanese security officials who worked for them, dominated Lebanon.

Speaking at a dinner he held Friday evening, Karami said he sought truth and justice in the killing of his uncle, late Prime Minister Rashid Karami. “We call for restoring respect for truth and justice in the assassination of martyred Prime Minister Rashid Karami especially after his assassin was released in an unprecedented and unconstitutional amnesty [decree],” he added.

“Isn’t it the worst thing for truth and justice in Lebanon that a criminal convicted and charged by the highest judicial authorities preaches justice and its obligations?” Karami asked.

Geagea was serving a life-time sentence on charges that he plotted the assassination of Karami on June 1, 1987. He was released on July 2005 in a special amnesty.

Habib said that Karami’s continuous attacks on Geagea indicated that, “in addition to paying back for granting him a Cabinet seat, [Karami] is trying to appear in media every time he feels the weakness of his political, popular and moral presence.”

Speaker Nabih Berri conceded a Shiite seat to Karami, a Sunni member of the March 8 coalition, during deliberations to form Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s Cabinet.

Habib also said that “more than 100 MPs signed the special amnesty decree based on their certainty that he [Geagea] was innocent.”

Separately, Karami lashed out at the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon, which was established to prosecute the assassins of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, saying it lost “full unanimity on its credibility, transparency, professionalism and neutrality … a long time ago.”

Habib said that one of the “most important” tasks assigned to Karami in return for granting him a post in the “Cabinet of Hezbollah,” along with attacking the LF, was to attack the STL, given that he is a Sunni.

“[It] is an attempt to make the local and international public believe that all sects reject the tribunal unanimously,” Habib said.