Caretaker Minister of Interior, Bassam Mawlawi, stated on Friday evening that “the investigation into the murder of Pascal Sleiman is still in a preliminary stage in the hands of the army.”
In an interview with the pan-Arab Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper, Mawlawi declared that “the Lebanese people’s speculations about the operation’s details and whether it was an ordinary robbery or not are legitimate, and only the final results of the investigation will answer them.”
To recall, Pascal Sleiman, Coordinator of the Lebanese Forces in Jbeil, was kidnapped on Sunday by a Syrian gang. He was found dead the following day on Syrian territory.
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“The routing of the stolen car used by the kidnappers is being tracked, and whether they tried to carry out other operations in the days leading up to the kidnapping and killing of Sleiman,” he added.
According to the Interior Minister, the gangs stationed on the Syrian border “are not only active in kidnappings but also in smuggling Captagon, as well as Syrians into Lebanon through illegal crossings.”
He said the Syrian state has a role in pursuing these gangs which it is “not fulfilling,” and called on it “to take responsibility.”
“We rejected a Syrian request to remove the watchtowers on the border, but we insist on activating them to try to combat these operations,” he concluded.
