BEIRUT: Hezbollah's leader has defended the men indicted in the murder of a former prime minister of Lebanon as ''brothers'' with an ''honorable history.''

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah spoke Saturday for the first time since the indictment was announced Thursday. A high-ranking Hezbollah militant and three others were accused in the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri.

The suggestion that the group was involved in the crime threatens to plunge this Arab nation on Israel's northern border into a new and violent crisis. The Shia militant Hezbollah denies any role in the killing and vows never to turn over any of its members.

The case has further polarized Lebanon's rival factions.