BEIRUT: The father of slain anti-Syrian Lebanese MP and journalist Gebran Tueni is suing Syria's Ambassador to the UN for derogatory comments about his son. Veteran Lebanese diplomat Ghassan Tueni charged that Syria's UN ambassador Faisal Mekdad compared his son to a "dog" in comments reported Wednesday by the U.S. daily, The New York Sun.
"I will sue him [Mekdad] before the American courts," Tueni, 79, told reporters Friday.
In its report from UN headquarters in New York, The New York Sun quoted "a diplomat" who overheard a conversation between Mekdad and an Arab diplomat in which the derogatory comments were allegedly made.
"So now every time that a dog dies in Beirut there will be an international investigation?" the paper reported Mekdad as saying to a colleague during a closed-door session.
The diplomat who overheard and reported the conversation declined to be named, the U.S. newspaper said.
The Tueni-owned An-Nahar newspaper said that Mekdad had sent a letter to Tueni in which he "categorically denied' the comments attributed to him by the U.S. daily.
A source at the Syrian Information Ministry also denied comments by the Syrian Information Minister Mahdi Dakhlallah about Gebran Tueni's assassination.
The foreign information director at the ministry, Nizar Meyhoub, asked in a statement on Saturday "how a venerable man such as Ghassan Tueni can fall victim to gossip and attribute to the Syrian information minister a statement that he did not, and could never, say."
Meyhoub explained that the Syrian Information Ministry was the first party to condemn the bombing that killed MP and journalist Gebran Tueni and the information minister conveyed his condolences to Ghassan Tueni in a telegram because he believed that murder and terrorism are banned and can only be carried out by Lebanon's enemies.
Reports said An-Nahar publisher Ghassan Tueni would press charges against Dakhlallah for stating that [his son] "Gebran was perhaps assassinated for financial problems" and against Mekdad, Syria's ambassador to the UN for his insults to the deceased.
"Syria ought to be punished for appointing an idiotic philosopher as information minister," Tueni said at a wake for his son Saturday at the Press Federation.
The Syrian minister reportedly had said: "Perhaps Gebran Tueni was indebted and was killed because he defaulted on the debt."
"Is this how debt is collected?" Tueni responded to the applause of crowds packing the Press Federation. "Let them tell us who the creditor is so we can make the collection for him now."
Michel Tueni, Tueni's lawyer, called upon the Syrian government Sunday to take the necessary measure to reprimand the persons. He denied that Tueni had any debts. Tueni's father Ghassan Tueni was extremely angry at the statement made by Mekdad and Dakhlallah. Meanwhile, the Tueni family continued to receive condolences.
The Press Federation president Mohammad Baalbaki, and the Journalists Union president Melhem Karam were gathered with Ghassan, Siham and Nayla Tueni along with other officials.
Ghassan Tueni bitterly regretted the death of his son before him, "contrary to the law of life."
He also declared that he would be returning to An-Nahar to reclaim his old position as general manager, which he had passed on to his late son upon retirement.
He revealed the telephone call of condolence from Hizbullah's Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah who also lost a son to the Israeli forces.
"Nasrallah told me that if he could be here with me, he would but for security reasons he can't be. And I believe him," he said. Tueni indicated that as a father who has lost three children he also has a paternal role toward the children of his assassinated colleagues.
"It is natural that I act as their father and I will do so; I know and I love the children of Kamel [Mroue], Riad [Taha] and Salim [Laouzi] and it is not necessary to mention the rest of them."
Tueni said his relations with the children of his deceased colleagues, who were killed by evil, give him strength today.
Elsewhere, the Orthodox Bishop of Tyre, Sidon and Marjayoun Elias Kfoury presided over a service at the Saint George Church in Marjayoun to commemorate the passing away of Tueni.
Former President Amin Gemayel called on the government and Lebanese judiciary to assume its responsibilities in Tueni's assassination, regretting the disintegration of the national institutions for the past 30 years.
Speaking to the Voice of Lebanon radio station from the An-Nahar offices in Downtown Beirut Saturday, Gemayel criticized Syria's comment about developments in Lebanon as "unacceptable," stressing that the Phalange Party will support Ghassan Tueni in suing the Syrian Ambassador to the UN.
Gemayel asserted that Gebran Tueni's struggle will remain in the heart of every Lebanese and praised Ghassan Tueni as a "strong and great man."
Gemayel reiterated opposition to turn Lebanon into a country of conspiracy against Syria but added "we cannot turn a new page with Syria after the latter gets rid of its complexes."
Gemayel called on Hizbullah to start a true dialogue and accept the logic of full consensual democracy to salvage the resistance and relations with Syria.
