Lebanon’s premier said that the cabinet will not provide the content of mobile phone messages to security forces investigating the October 19 assassination of Internal Security Forces intelligence chief Wissam al-Hassan, and instead will transfer only SMS traffic logs.  “What is being requested is the contents of the SMS texts… We will provide them with the messages’ logs, but without their contents,” Najib Miqati told Al-Arabiya television on Thursday. 

 

His comments were made a day after the cabinet rejected security agencies’ request to provide them with data of all mobile phone messages in the two months prior to the assassination of Hassan. Hassan, who had close connections with the opposition March 14 coalition, was killed in a car bombing on October 19 in Beirut’s Ashrafieh. [Link]