A Lebanese military court on Friday increased to nearly 10 years the
jail term for a former minister convicted last year of smuggling
explosives and planning attacks, in a case that has underscored the
country’s sharp political divisions.
Former Information Minister
Michel Samaha, who has close ties to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,
was detained in August 2012 and confessed to involvement in a plot for
which Damascus’ security chief Ali Mamluk was also indicted.
Syrian
officials have denied Damascus was involved, but the allegations
exposed rifts in Lebanon, which often break along sectarian lines, over
Syria’s long-standing involvement in the country.
Samaha’s initial
four-year sentence and later release on bail prompted bitter protests
from opponents of Assad, who saw the decisions as unduly lenient and
evidence that Damascus and its ally Hezbollah held sway over the justice
system.
The
case also gained wider regional significance when Saudi Foreign
Minister Adel al-Jubeir suggested it was part of the reason Riyadh was
withdrawing billions of dollars in aid from Lebanon’s army and security
forces.
He said the military court’s granting of bail to Samaha
raised questions over the army’s independence from the Shiite Hezbollah
movement, Lebanon’s main powerbroker and a principle ally of Riyadh’s
top regional rival Iran.
On Friday the court set Samaha’s new sentence at 13 years, but in Lebanon a prison year is equivalent to nine months.
“The
issuance of the verdict on the terrorist Michel Samaha corrects the
former lenient verdict, which we had rejected and declared we would not
tolerate,” said former prime minister Saad al-Hariri, a leading critic
of Damascus.
Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk, a member of
Hariri’s Future Movement, said the new sentence confirmed “the
correctness of our trust in the president and members of the court.”
Ashraf
Rifi, another Sunni Muslim politician, had resigned his post as justice
minister over the granting of bail to Samaha in January after
describing the trial last year as a travesty of justice.
Related: Lebanon Arrests Suspected Mastermind of Twin Bombings Last Year in Beirut
Syria
is Lebanon’s largest neighbor and dominated the country from the end of
its civil war in 1990 until 2005, when US-led pressure helped force
Syrian troops to leave.
Damascus’ ally Hezbollah remains Lebanon’s main power broker and has fought alongside government forces in Syria’s civil war.
Hezbollah and its leading members made no immediate comment on Friday’s sentence.
Topics:
lebanon, syrian civil war, syria, hezbollah, middle east, war & conflict
