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The second trial of Salim Ayyash, found guilty last year of involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, has been cancelled by a UN-backed tribunal due to a lack of funds.
Ayyash, a member of the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, is a suspect in three other attacks that targeted senior Lebanese politicians: former deputy prime minister Elias El Murr, former lawmaker Marwan Hamade and politician George Hawi.
Mr Hamade and El Murr survived the assassination attempts, but Hawi was killed.
The court found the three cases to be connected with the attack that killed Mr Hariri in 2005 and charged Ayyash with five counts, including acts of terrorism.
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Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain has summoned the Lebanese ambassadors and handed them protest notes after the country’s caretaker foreign minister made derogatory remarks aimed at the kingdom and suggested it had helped fund the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq.
The Saudi foreign ministry said it handed over a memorandum to the ambassador, officially protesting “the offence” committed by Charbel Wehbe.
“These statements violate the most basic diplomatic norms and doesn’t fit in the context of the historic relations between brotherly people,” a statement from the ministry read.
Bahrain and Kuwait also summoned the Lebanese ambassador and Charge d’affaires respectively and handed them protest notes.
is two-and-a-half times the country’s monthly minimum wage, according to a study by the American University of Beirut’s Crisis Observatory Unit.
One Beirut resident, who
The National: “Without aid, we would become beggars.
“Although my kids have jobs, I still have to get them food because they can’t afford it,” said Mirna El Masri, a 56-year-old homemaker.
With a salary of three-times the minimum wage, Ms El Masri’s family could afford a decent living until late in 2019, when one of the worst financial crises to grip the country in decades unfolded. An 85 per cent drop in the Lebanese pound’s value against the dollar since then has reduced Ms Al Masri’s household income from approximately $1000 to less than $150 dollars today.