Samaha admits planning killings

A former Lebanese minister has confessed to plotting sectarian killings along with Syria's security chief, according to alleged leaked security documents published by a local newspaper on Monday. Former Information Minister Michel Samaha, who has close links to the Damascus regime, was charged earlier this month by Lebanon's chief military prosecutor with planning attacks in Lebanon and of transporting explosives. Al-Joumhouria newspaper published Monday a picture of Samaha allegedly giving a bag stuffed with cash to an undercover agent at his Beirut home, along with 10 pages of documents alleged to be records of the investigation. "I put the bombs in my car while I was at Mamluk's office in Damascus," Samaha was quoted as saying in the documents, referring to feared Syrian security chief Ali Mamluk. Samaha allegedly singled out religious and political figures suspected of supporting the Syrian opposition as targets for assassination, including Malek Al-Shaar, the highest ranking Sunni cleric in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli. A senior Lebanese security official told AFP on condition on anonymity that the documents published by Al-Joumhouria were "most probably" the official investigation file. Lebanon has been rocked by several incidents of Syria-related violence, including a spate of kidnappings of Syrians and deadly clashes between pro- and anti-Damascus communities in Tripoli this month. Syria dominated its smaller neighbour for nearly three decades until 2005, when its troops were forced to pull out of Lebanon under international pressure.