Jumblatt commemorates father's assasination

The head of Lebanon's Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), MP Walid Jumblatt, placed the flag of the Syrian revolution (a pre-Baath flag of Syria) on the grave of his father PSP founder Kamal Jumblatt. The MP commemorated the 35th anniversary of his father's assassination in the presence of a number of Lebanese ministers, MPs and prominent figures. Jumblatt has become one of Assad’s staunchest critics, slamming the embattled president’s brutal crackdown against anti-government protesters which began on March 15, 2011. Kamal Jumblatt and his companions Fawzi Shedid and Hafez Ghseini were shot dead by gunmen who intercepted their car in Chouf on March 16, 1977. The late Jumblatt founded the PSP in 1949 and was the head of the National Movement, a coalition of Lebanese leftist factions that fought alongside Palestine Liberation Organisation militants against Christian parties during Lebanon’s 1975-1990 Civil War. Walid Jumblatt has in the past accused Syrian intelligence of being behind his father's 1977 assassination.