BEIRUT: Former Lebanese minister Mohamad Chatah was killed in a massive bomb blast on Friday.

The explosion also killed five other people and threw Lebanon, which has been drawn into the Syrian conflict, into further turmoil after a series of sectarian bombings over the past year.

Former prime minister Saad al-Hariri accused Hezbollah of involvement in the killing of Chatah, his 62-year-old political adviser, saying it was “a new message of terrorism”.

“As far as we are concerned the suspects... are those who are fleeing international justice and refusing to represent themselves before the international tribunal,” Hariri said.

Chatah’s killing occurred three weeks before the long-delayed opening of a trial of five Hezbollah suspects indicted for the 2005 bombing which killed former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, Saad’s father, and 21 other people.

The trial is due to open in The Hague in January. The suspects are all fugitives and Hezbollah, which denies any role in the Hariri assassination, has refused to cooperate with the court, which it says is politically motivated.

Preliminary UN investigations implicated Syrian officials.

The explosion destroyed Chatah’s car, turning it into a heap of twisted metal, and injured another 71 people. It took place not far from where Rafik al-Hariri was assassinated by a huge bomb in February 2005.

The attack on Chatah is being linked to a power struggle that has raged in Lebanon since Hariri’s assassination. In October last year, General Wissamal-Hassan, an intelligence chief linked to Hariri, was killed by a car bomb in Beirut.

Chatah, a vocal critic of Hezbollah, was regarded as one of the brains behind the Hariri-led Future movement and March 14 opposition coalition, and their point person with western governments.

A message on Chatah’s Twitter account less than an hour before the blast accused Hezbollah of trying to take control of the country. —Reuters