Interior Minister in the caretaker government Nohad al-Machnouk asked the municipality of a locality in Mount Lebanon to remove street signs bearing the name of late Mustafa Badreddine, a senior official in "Hezbollah" and a key suspect in ex-PM Rafik Hariri's assassination.
Social networking sites reported on Monday that the minister had granted a year ago the municipality of Ghobeiry the permission to name a street after Badreddine, who was killed in Damascus in May 2016.
After denying in a statement on Monday that he allowed the municipality to make such step, Machnouk addressed a letter to the concerned body, saying: “The application of powers provided for the municipality under the Municipalities Law is not absolute, but should guarantee that nothing in its practice affects the public order.”
The letter came in response to the Ghobeiry municipality, which stressed that its decision was legitimate and legal and was taken a month after submitting its demand to the ministry and not receiving an answer of refusal or acceptance.
The minister said in his letter that the interior ministry had the right not to consider a late response as a tacit consent, in accordance with the provisions of Article 63 of the Municipalities Law, “especially when the issue has political dimensions and sectarian and security aspects that would threaten security and order.”
“It is not permissible to consider the decision ratified and enforced, under the pretext of the passing of one month” since the submission of the demand to the ministry, Machnouk noted.
