The head of the Change Party, Elie Mahfoud, after submitting his memorandum at the Beirut courthouse. (Credit: NNA)
Two requests for the opening of a judicial investigation against former Hezbollah MP Nawaf Mousawi were filed Tuesday, following a recent statement in which he issued threats against any future president not endorsed by his party.
"He will never make it to Baabda. And assuming he is elected, that president will not live," Mousawi declared during an interview with Hezbollah's al-Manar channel on Friday. To drive the point home, the former member of the party's political bureau referenced the assassination of president-elect Bachir Gemayel in 1982, at the hands of Habib Chartouni, a former member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP). Mousawi even described the act as a "national duty."
The first request against the former MP was submitted by Elie Mahfoud, head of the Change Party, at the Beirut courthouse. Mahfoud argued that these remarks "are clear and direct threats against any presidential candidate not backed by Hezbollah."
Another request for the opening of a judicial investigation was filed by lawyer Majd Harb, a former parliamentary candidate. Harb based his complaint on accusations of "incitement to murder and discord, undermining national unity, and defamation of an elected president of the Lebanese Republic (Bachir Gemayel)."
Harb argued that former MP Mousawi is "promoting ideas foreign to local culture," noting that Mousawi sought to trivialize his accusations against a segment of the population opposed to Hezbollah by labeling them "the internal Zionist right." The lawyer emphasized that "such statements are punishable under the penal code," which is the basis for the complaint.
Nawaf Mousawi, who served as an MP for Sour (southern Lebanon) and was a member of Hezbollah's political bureau, resigned in July 2019 "at the request of his party" following a series of "errors committed." Mousawi had been at the center of controversy days earlier after a shootout at a police station in southern Lebanon.