[DEBATE] : Lebanon: "PSP Man Linked to Hawi Assassination" Arrested

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

<http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=91797>
Hariri probe 'arrests PSP man linked to Hawi assassination'

Daily Star staff
Thursday, May 08, 2008

Hariri probe 'arrests PSP man linked to Hawi assassination'

BEIRUT: The UN probe committee investigating the assassination of
former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has detained a man in Beirut's Wata
al-Mosseitbeh neighborhood on suspicion of involvement in the killing
of former Lebanese Communist Party cheif George Hawi, a report
published by As-Safir newspaper said Tuesday.

As-Safir, citing witnesses who live in the neighborhood, said UN
investigators in a large convoy visited the area on April 14 and
raided the house of a man identified as "N.G." who lives opposite
Hawi's residence on Jabal al-Arab Street.

The Communist Party's former secretary general was killed in a car
bombing in June 2005.

The report said the suspect, a member of the Progressive Socialist
Party headed by MP Walid Jumblatt, had left shortly after Hawi's
murder to Dubai where he has been working there for nearly two years.
He returned to Beirut about six months ago to work at a restaurant.

"I used to see this individual every day on the sidewalk near my
parent's house; he used to spend the night smoking sheesha near my
father's car until 2:00 or 3:00 a.m.," Hawi's son, Raffi Madayan, told
Al-Manar television on Tuesday.

Madayan also accused the Lebanese security services of negligence:
"I'm very concerned that there might be attempts to cover for the real
killer."

In its Tuesday report, As-Safir said investigations on members of the
so-called Rafeh network - suspected of being an Israeli spying cell
operating in Lebanon - have led to new information concerning Hawi's
murder.

Hawi was assassinated when a bomb planted in his car was detonated by
remote control as he traveled through Wata al-Moseitbeh. The
perpetrator has yet to be identified, but the ruling coalition in
Lebanon has usually blamed Syria for this and other explosions in the
capital, after the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon. Syria has
repeatedly denied the charges. - The Daily Star
-- 
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>