Lebanonwire.com | Anti-Syrian journalist killed in Beirut blast

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June 2, 2005

Anti-Syrian journalist killed in Beirut blast
by Nayla Razzouk

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BEIRUT, Lebanon - Prominent anti-Syrian journalist Samir Kassir was
killed Thursday when a bomb exploded under his car in Beirut in an attack blamed on the pro-Syrian regime and widely condemned at home and abroad.

As thousands joined a candlelit vigil for Kassir in Beirut, the opposition
called for pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud to resign over the bombing, which US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said was designed to intimidate voters.

The killing of Kassir comes just five days after the first round of
four-phase general elections in Lebanon and follows the pullout of Syrian troops after a near three-decade military presence.

"Once again the hand of terrorism, under the protection of the president
and the joint Lebanese-Syrian intelligence agencies and what is left of the regime, targets a symbol of the free press," said a statement from the
oppositon, which accuses the government and its Syrian masters of
orchestrating the blast.

Interior Minister Hassan Sabaa told a press conference Kassir was killed instantly when a bomb under his car weighing between 500 and 700 grams (between 1.1 and 1.5 pounds) was "most probably" detonated by remote control.

The United States and European Union condemned the murder, which has reignited anti-Syrian feelings in Lebanon stoked after the February assassination in Beirut of popular billionaire and former premier Rafiq Hariri.

Hariri's murder triggered a massive popular uprising which helped pave the way for the withdrawal of Syrian troops that was completed at the end of April under the weight of intense international pressure.

A Christian of Palestinian origin who held Lebanese and French nationality, Kassir was an editorial writer for the leading An-Nahar newspaper. He regularly wrote virulent articles against the Lebanese regime and maintained close links with the Syrian opposition.

"The blood-stained hands that assassinated Rafiq Hariri are the same ones that assassinated Samir Kassir," said Hariri's son and political heir Saad.

But Damascus -- also the focus of blame over the Hariri killing -- angrily rejected accusations it had a role in the Kassir bombing.

"It's a henious act," said Rice after a meeting with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. "Obviously someone is trying to intimidate the Lebanese people as they move through this electoral process."

As night fell, men and women, many of them crying, gathered in Martyrs' Square -- the site of massive popular rallies after Hariri's assassination -- where they stood in silence, holding candles.

"The martyr of freedom," read one banner, while others held portraits of the slain journalist.

"They killed him because he worked for the democratic process in Lebanon and Syria," said writer Elias Khoury, like Kassir a founding member of the opposition Democratic Left movement.

Khoury said Kassir's funeral will be held on Saturday.

The Lebanese government instructed the justice minister to "seek the help of any local and foreign party which has the means of solving the crime."

Kassir's body was found in the front seat of a car outside his house in the Ashrafiyeh neighborhood of mostly Christian east Beirut, which was immediately sealed off by the army and internal security forces. A passerby was injured.

Kassir's brother Sleiman told AFP he "lived all his life in danger."

Prime Minister Nagib Miqati visited the scene of the blast, which he said "targeted security and freedom. We will not allow anyone to harm the security of the country."

The Shiite movement Hezbollah denounced the "vile explosion ... which targets freedom of expression and journalists in Lebanon, and which also targets internal security and stability."

France said it "strongly condemned (the assassination of) one of the symbols of the freedom and independence of the Lebanese press."

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders called it a "cowardly assassination" while Amnesty International called for "an immediate and impartial independent investigation."

In his last editorial which appeared Friday, Kassir -- whose passport was confiscated in 2000 following articles against the "police regime" in Lebanon -- criticised the detention of political activists in Syria.

"The Baathist regime in Syria is behaving the way it behaved in Lebanon, making blunder after blunder," he wrote.

"He was a great defender of freedoms in the Arab world. This is an act of state terrorism and I expect more such crimes," prominent Syrian opposition figure and filmmaker Omar Amiralay, a close friend of Kassir, told AFP.

Kassir was a professor of political science and published several books on the Lebanese civil war and the history of Beirut.

He was married to Giselle Khoury, a star talk-show host on Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television. He also had two daughters from a previous marriage.