BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on Friday claimed Israel had complete control over Lebanon`s telecom sector, calling for convicted spies to hang amid a widening probe into acts of espionage.
"The country is exposed and Israel... secures much information through its control over telecommunications" stretching back years, Nasrallah said in a televised address marking his Shiite militant party`s "Wounded Veterans Day."
Lebanon has arrested three suspects over the past month in an expanding probe into an alleged network of Israeli spies employed in the country`s telecom sector.
Two of them, technician Charbel Azzi and Tarek al-Rabaa, were likely accomplices at the company Alfa, one of Lebanon`s two mobile service providers, a source close to the investigation has told AFP.
Rabaa is reportedly a transmissions engineer.
The third suspect was arrested late Thursday and "is a former employee in Lebanon`s telecommunications sector," the source said.
Nasrallah linked the arrests to an international probe into the 2005 assassination of ex-premier Rafik Hariri, slamming the pending indictment of the UN-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon as "fabricated."
"The Israelis, who today stand impotent before the will, steadfastness, pride and readiness of the resistance in Lebanon are banking on another Israeli project, which is called the Special Tribunal for Lebanon," Nasrallah said.
A preliminary report by the UN investigating team said it had collected data from mobile phone calls made the day of Hariri`s murder as evidence.
Media reports last year said the evidence implicated Hezbollah in the assassination.
Nasrallah in March confirmed the UN team had interrogated members of his party but said Hezbollah was not in the tribunal`s line of fire.
Nasrallah, whose party fought a devastating 2006 war with Israel, also called on Friday for "the execution of those given the death sentence the soonest possible."
"Before the (2006) war, these spies gave important information to the Israeli enemy and based on this information Israel bombed buildings, homes, factories and institutions," he said.
"Many martyrs died and many others were wounded," Nasrallah added. "These spies are partners in the killings, the crimes, the threats and the displacement."
Since April 2009, Lebanon has arrested more than 70 people on suspicion of spying for Israel, including security officials.
Lebanon and Israel remain technically at a state of war, and convicted spies face life in prison with hard labour or the death penalty if found guilty of contributing to Lebanese loss of life.
Two Lebanese citizens have already been sentenced to death for "collaborating with Israel and providing information on targets."
One of the two was found guilty of providing Israel with targeting information during the 2006 war.
Israel has not commented on the arrests.
BDST: 0908 HRS, 17 July 2010
