BEIRUT: A Sunni cleric charged over a double car bombing in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli last month that left 45 dead was released yesterday, a judicial source said.
A military court decided on the provisional release of Sheikh Hashem Minkara, who heads the Al Tawhid organisation which is close to the Damascus regime, the source said.
Minkara is accused of having known about a “terrorist project and not having alerted authorities”. Twin car bombs exploded outside mosques in the mostly Sunni port city of Tripoli on August 23.
A Syrian army captain is among four other people charged for the country’s deadliest attack since the end of its 1975-1990 civil war. Captain Mohammed Ali and another Syria stand accused of having placed the two car bombs.
Neither of the two Syrians are currently in Lebanon, but if convicted, they face the death sentence. Minkara and two other Lebanese have also been charged. His deputy, Sheikh Ahmed Al Gharib, and a journalist who had previously done freelance work for Al Manar television, have been accused of belonging to “a terrorist cell that placed” the bombs.
AFP
