BEIRUT: Former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora will sue a local website with links to the Free Patriotic Movement for forging a letter in his name, a statement from his press office said Wednesday.

“The FPM news website [Tayyar.org] has published a fake letter from former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora to the Saudi ambassador allegedly asking [Saudi Arabia] for assistance to remove [Lebanon’s] Grand Mufti from his post,” the statement said.

Siniora, according to the statement, will file a lawsuit against the administrators of the website.

Tayyar.org, the online mouthpiece of MP Michel Aoun’s FPM, published Tuesday a letter attributed to Siniora in which it alleges the head of the Future parliamentary bloc sought Riyadh’s assistance to oust Grand Mufti Mohammad Rashid Qabbani.

The impetus behind Siniora’s request, according to the letter that was dated Nov. 15, was Qabbani’s abstention from issuing a fatwa to incite the youth to fulfill their “Jihadi duty” and support Syrian rebels.

In the letter posted by Tayyar.org Siniora allegedly requests that another mufti, one closer to the Future Movement, replace Qabbani, particularly given the short period until the upcoming parliamentary polls.

Siniora slammed Wednesday the website, accusing it of continuing a campaign to distort public opinion.

“It seems that the FPM-led website has decided to keep up with its same policy, as it has done in previous years, as well as its disrespect to both public opinion and its readers by fabricating a letter in the name of head of Future bloc Fouad Siniora sent to the Saudi ambassador and forging his signature on it,” said the statement.

The statement added that the letter included expressions and words Siniora would never write or say “or even think of.”

“The press office of [former] Prime Minister Fouad Siniora regrets that the officials responsible for the said website reached such a shameful and upsetting level of slander and fabrication to serve cheap political aims,” the statement said.