BEIRUT, June 2: Prominent anti-Syrian journalist Samir Kassir was killed on Thursday when a bomb exploded under his car in Beirut. Lebanese opposition figures blamed the blast on the government and its political masters in Syria, which ended its 29-year troop presence in the country after the February murder of former premier Rafik Hariri.
“The blood-stained hands that assassinated Rafik Hariri are the same ones that assassinated Samir Kassir,” said Mr Hariri’s son and political heir Saad, whose father’s killing was blamed by many on Lebanese and Syrian intelligence. Mr Kassir’s murder in mostly Christian east Beirut comes five days after the first round of general elections in Lebanon, held just a month after the last Syrian soldier left Lebanese soil.
Interior Minister Hassan Sabaa told a press conference Mr Kassir was killed instantly when a bomb under his car weighing between 500 and 700 grams was ‘most probably’ detonated by remote control. Elias Atallah, a senior official with the Democratic Left opposition movement of which Mr Kassir was a founding member, pointed the finger of blame at the Lebanese and Syrian governments.
The Democratic Left was one of the driving forces behind the popular uprising triggered by Mr Hariri’s killing that brought down the government and forced the ousting of Lebanon’s top security chiefs and the Syrian withdrawal. But Syria, which has held political sway in its smaller neighbour for years, angrily rejected the accusations.
The Lebanese government instructed the justice minister to ‘seek the help of any local and foreign party which has the means of solving the crime’. The decision came after President Emile Lahoud said he was due to meet the head of the UN commission probing Mr Hariri’s assassination to ask for help in investigating Mr Kassir’s killing.
Mr Kassir’s body was found in the front seat of white Alfa Romeo parked at his house in the Ashrafiyeh neighborhood, which was immediately sealed off by the army and internal security forces. A passerby was injured in the explosion.—AFP
