12 years after the assassination of Mohammad Chatah, a street in his name in Tripoli

12 years ago to the day, a car-bomb attack in downtown Beirut claimed the life of Mohammad Chatah, a diplomat and politician of great erudition and experience, adviser to former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, and previously a close companion of his father, Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was himself assassinated in February 2005.

To mark this twelfth anniversary, Tripoli, the capital of North Lebanon and Chatah’s hometown, has decided to name a street in his honor, during a ceremony held under the patronage of former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

In his remarks, Siniora recalled the day he “lost a friend, a colleague, and a very dear brother, a wise diplomat, an intellectual and an accomplished economist.” He referred to “the timing of the assassination, just weeks before the opening of sessions at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon into the killing of Rafik Hariri.”

“The purpose of Mohammad Chatah’s assassination was to prevent the truth from emerging, to intimidate us all, and to extinguish hope of identifying the murderers of Rafik Hariri and his companions,” Siniora continued. Hariri’s assassination was followed in the ensuing years by dozens of others targeting figures from what was then known as the March 14 camp.

Speaking about the initiative to name a street after Chatah, Siniora said it honored not only his roots but also his place among the many politicians, activists, and thinkers who paid with their lives for their free thought and commitment to a Lebanon of coexistence, democracy and citizenship.

For his part, Abdel Hamid Karime, president of Tripoli’s municipal council, recalled that the decision to name the street after Mohammad Chatah actually dates back to March 2016, even if it is only being implemented in 2025. He stressed that the measure “is not a routine administrative step, but a gesture of fidelity to a man who gave so much, and who fell as a martyr for freedom of expression and courageous political positions, born of a deep conviction that self-respecting cities keep alive the memory of those who served them and their country.”