Transport Minister threatens lawsuit against The Telegraph while International Air Transport Association says quote attributed to it is ‘completely false’
Lebanese authorities have dismissed allegations in a report by Britain’s Telegraph newspaper that the Rafic Hariri International Airport is being used to store weapons.
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Lebanon‘s caretaker Transport Minister Ali Hamieh has denied a report published by UK newspaper The Telegraph that the Lebanese militia Hezbollah was smuggling in and stockpiling weapons at Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport.
“This report defames the reputation of the Beirut airport and is completely false and not based in fact,” he said at press conference hours after The Telegraph published the report on Sunday.
The report, which cited anonymous “whistleblowers” working at the airport, said that Hezbollah had stored a large cache of Iranian weapons at the airport.
“It is a ridiculous article. I wish the newspaper had used a source at the British Ministry of Transport, which visited the airport on January 22, 2024 and inspected all its departments,” Mr Hamieh said.
The minister added that he and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati were in the process of raising a lawsuit against the newspaper.
The sources quoted by The Telegraph said the airport had been receiving “unusually big boxes” from Iran but admitted they could not see what was inside as they were forbidden from opening them.
It was not made clear in the report how it was known the boxes contained weapons.
Mr Hamieh dismissed the claim, saying that only personnel from Lebanon’s Customs authority were mandated to inspect such packages.
The Telegraph’s article also originally cited an anonymous security source from airlines’ trade association, the International Air Transport Association as saying it had been aware of the stockpiling of weapons for years and that it would ideally “close the airport and have all the weapons and explosives removed”.
The newspaper later made a correction to the story that changed the attribution to a “security source at a major international aviation body”.
Mr Hamieh received an email from IATA during his press conference, which he read out.
“To whom it may concern. It has come to our attention that a recent Telegraph newspaper article includes a quote attributed to an unnamed IATA source,” the email said.
“This quote is completely false and misattributed and IATA has not made and will not make any comment on the situation at Beirut’s international airport.”
Updated: June 23, 2024, 6:44 PM