| Lebanese opposition
leader to return from exile in May BEIRUT -
Exiled Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun plans to return to Lebanon next month after
the Syrian complete troop pullout in order to prepare for legislative elections, a close
aide said Sunday.
"General Aoun plans to return on May 7, but he will announce it officially himself
later on," Alain Aoun, the exiled leader's nephew and a member of his Free Patriotic
Movement, told AFP.
"He always said he wanted to return after the Syrian withdrawal, which is scheduled
to take place by April 30, and before the legislative elections (due by the end of
May)," he said.
"He is returning to take part in the elections and in political life."
Aoun, a former army general, ran a military government before being ousted and forced into
exile in France in 1990 by a Syrian-led offensive in the closing stages of the Lebanese
civil war.
He was charged in 2003 over statements to the US Congress that Lebanese authorities deemed
were damaging to Beirut's ties with its political masters in Damascus.
The prosecution centers on testimony Aoun gave to a US congressional committee in
September 2003 during discussions of a bill that imposed sanctions on Syria for its
"support of terrorism" and "occupation of Lebanon".
In his evidence to the committee, Aoun accused Syria of masterminding the assassinations
of two Lebanese presidents during the 1975-1990 civil war.
"We expect that a judicial solution will be found to clear him over this baseless
case," Alain Aoun said.
Michel Aoun is still broadly popular among Lebanon's large Christian minority, which is
generally hostile to Syria's influence and military presence in the country. |
