Lebanese ex-PM calls on Hezbollah to disarm

Lebanese former Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Tuesday urged Shiite armed group Hezbollah to surrender its weapons to the state and reconsider its opposition to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), which is probing the 2005 assassination of his father, Sunni former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. "I call on Hezbollah to reconsider its stance regarding the international tribunal," Hariri said in a televised speech from Paris to mark the seventh anniversary of the assassination of his father. "We urge Hezbollah to place its arms at the disposal of the state so as to avert violence and prevent the state from collapsing," he said. Hariri said Hezbollah's refusal to hand over four members accused by the UN-backed STL of plotting the assassination of Rafik Hariri would implicate the group. Hariri, who left Lebanon after his government collapsed in January 2011 over a dispute with Hezbollah on the Netherlands- based court, said Tuesday that justice in the case of his father would be achieved.