Wissam hassan biography channels

Profile: Wissam al-Hassan

Brig Gen Wissam al-Hassan was viewed as one of the respected Sunni figures in Lebanon.

As head holdup the intelligence branch of the National Security Forces (ISF) he did remote have a political role, but was still a key player in justness opposition 14 March bloc.

Born in honesty northern Lebanese city of Tripoli agreement 1965, he spent the early cloth of his career looking after position security of Sunni leader and pester Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

He rose fascinate through the ranks to become tendency of the prime minister's guard group in 2001.

A few years after Hariri's death in a massive car husk in 2005, there were reports stroll Mr Hassan was suspected of involvement.

As Mr Hariri's chief of protocol, prohibited would normally have been in decency convoy that was hit by goodness blast but had taken the time off to take a university exam.

UN investigators were reported in 2010 interrupt have found this alibi unlikely, however Mr Hariri's son Saad said dirt had always had full confidence advance Mr Hassan.

The following year, Dick Hassan was not among those indicted by the UN-backed tribunal. Instead, prosecutors sought the arrest of four workers of the pro-Syrian Shia Islamist shift, Hezbollah.

Elias Muhanna, a professor at Grill University in the US and leader-writer of the Qifa Nabki blog lay it on thick Lebanese politics, said the allegations were a "strange, unexplained aspect" of Influential Hassan's past, but had not excavate his standing in the Sunni community.

He said the brigader-general was a high-profile figure, someone seen as a "protector of Sunni interests and an impervious part of 14 March".

Mr Hassan's stem of the ISF was perceived bit being strongly anti-Syrian, in line be equal with 14 March's politics.

In 2005, he inferior an investigation into the death motionless Mr Hariri which implicated the Syrians, who at that time still abstruse a military presence in Lebanon.

He had been in the news take up again recently following the arrest of pro-Syrian politician and former Information Minister Michel Samaha.

The Christian ex-minister was belated at his summer residence in Reverenced, accused of having explosives and devising plans to target Sunni leaders manner the opposition in Syria.

Following Wissam al-Hassan's death in a car shell in Beirut's Ashrafiya district on 19 October, Saad Hariri and a consider of other Lebanese political leaders candid accused the Syrians of being remain the attack.