October 23, 2007	Tuesday	Shawwal 10, 1428

BEIRUT: Lebanese lawmaker Hadi Hbeich has barely seen daylight in a month, sheltered in a Beirut hotel with other MPs behind tight security designed to stop them joining a list of assassinated anti-Syrian politicians.

“Sometimes they tell you it’s been raining outside. I’m not exaggerating when I say we really don’t know,” said the MP, speaking in a hotel suite behind closed curtains and under the watch of guards who searched the room before he entered.

Hbeich is one of around 40 MPs from the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority who have moved into the InterContinental Phoenicia to protect themselves from assassins who have struck against their bloc three times in less than a year.

The last was on Sept 19, when a car bomb killed lawmaker Antoine Ghanem — a member of the anti-Syrian March 14 coalition which secured its parliamentary majority in 2005 elections.

Trying to make sure they are not the next victims, the March 14 MPs have hunkered down in the seafront hotel, its entrance guarded by concrete barriers and tank traps.—Reuters