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Lebanon: Chamber of Deputies Speaker Accuses PM of Deceiving People, UN | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Beirut, Asharq Al-Awsat- Nabih Birri, the Lebanese Chamber of Deputies speaker, has accused Prime Minister Fouad al-Siniora of “deceiving the Lebanese people and the majority deputies”, adding that his (Al-Siniora’s) statement yesterday about his intention to send the draft bill on the international court to parliament after the Arab summit is an admission that he did not send it in the first place and was telling everyone that I was refusing to endorse the draft.”

Birri told Asharq Al-Awsat in reply to Al-Siniora’s remark that he would send the tribunal draft bill to the chamber after the Arab summit: “At last, the truth has appeared and one who fights the truth is defeated by it. After much tardiness and great denial, the Prime Minister admitted that he has not send so far the draft bill on the international tribunal to the Chamber of Deputies. The question now is that this being so, how did (Prime Minister Al-Siniora) send a message to the UN secretary general (Ban Ki-moon) saying that the chamber speaker hijacked parliament and refused to present the tribunal bill for approval despite a request to him from the chamber’s majority of 70 deputies?” He also asked: “How can this message to deceive the United Nations be justified? And what is your opinion now of the campaign launched against Speaker Birri that he refused to accept the 70 deputies’ petition and did not believe then that I did not have a draft bill and I could not give something that I did not have?”

Addressing Prime Minister Al-Siniora, Birri said: “As to there being a promise by the Arab League secretary general (Amr Moussa) that the bill would not be send, Musa himself was surprised today that the draft has not been send all this long time.” He pointed out that Musa “asked two things from Prime Minister Al-Siniora: To cancel publication of the bill in the official gazette and to send it back to the president of the republic so as to send it to the Chamber of Deputies.”