Lebanon's military prosecutor general accused Syrian security chief General Ali Mamluk and former Lebanese minister Michel Samaha on Saturday of plotting terrorist attacks in Lebanon, a judicial source said. Samaha was arrested on Thursday.
By News Wires (text)
AFP - Lebanon's military prosecutor general on Saturday accused Syrian security chief General Ali Mamluk and former Lebanese minister Michel Smamluamaha of planning attacks in Lebanon, a judicial source said.
A Syrian army colonel named only as Adnan was also accused as being an accessory to the conspiracy.
Mamluk is "suspected of forming a group to provoke sectarian killings and terrorist acts using explosives, which were transported and stored by Michel Samaha," the source told AFP.
Their targets would have been religious and political figures, and the men are accused of attempting to stir sectarian strife and undermine the Lebanese state, the source said.
On Thursday, Lebanese security forces arrested Samaha, who is considered close to Syria's embattled regime, in a case linked to a seizure of explosives, a senior official said.
He said the explosives were to have been used mostly in northern Lebanon, a region of tensions linked to the conflict in neighbouring Syria.
"The accusations against Samaha are related to explosives, which were going to be placed in several parts of the country, especially the north," the official said on condition of anonymity.
The official declined to elaborate on the alleged link between the former minister and the explosives, but he said the material was not seized from Samaha's home where the arrest was carried out.
Lebanon's political forces are sharply divided over Syria, whose regime long held sway over its smaller neighbour.
