Mawlawi says search of Iranian planes aims to 'protect Lebanon'

Caretaker Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi stressed Friday that “what the ministry and the Airport Security Apparatus are doing is aimed at protecting Lebanon and the Lebanese,” hours after controversy at the airport over the entry of two Iranian suitcases.

“The decision has been taken to search all diplomats,” Mawlawi told al-Jadeed TV.

“The search of the Iranian plane (on Thursday) was a routine measure and we are implementing the law and protecting the airport and entire Lebanon, because it cannot bear any new (Israeli) attack,” the minister explained.

He added: “We also searched the Iranian plane that arrived this morning without any problem and no one objected, and we only want to protect Lebanon.”

The Lebanese Foreign Ministry announced Friday that “two small diplomatic suitcases carried by an Iranian diplomat aboard a Mahan Air flight” were allowed to enter through Beirut airport after the Iranian embassy “clarified that they contained papers, documents and cash for paying operational expenses exclusively related to the embassy’s operations.”

“Accordingly, the two suitcases were allowed to enter as per the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” the Foreign Ministry added.

The Iranian flight was delayed upon arrival and searched at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport on Thursday, after Lebanon reportedly received intelligence of an Iranian plan to smuggle cash into the country to fund Hezbollah.

According to reports in Lebanon, members of an Iranian diplomatic delegation aboard the plane tried to prevent it from being searched, citing diplomatic immunity, but after security forces were called in, the plane was eventually scanned.