By Nadim Ladki
Beiruit - Lebanese Christian cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel, an outspoken critic of Syria, was assassinated near Beirut on Tuesday, plunging Lebanon deeper into a crisis that threatens to destabilise the country.
At least three gunmen rammed their car into Gemayel's vehicle, then leapt out and riddled it with bullets, firing at Gemayel with silencer-equipped automatic weapons at point-blank range in the Christian Sin el-Fil neighbourhood, witnesses said.
Ten bullet holes were seen around the window of the driver's seat of his grey car. The two front seats were soaked in blood.
'Anti-government protests could turn violent' The son of assassinated former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri blamed Syria for the killing, but Damascus denied it.
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Gemayel, 34, was rushed to hospital where he later died of his wounds. Television footage showed hundreds of angry and weeping family members and supporters gathering at the hospital.
Angry protesters in the Christian town of Zahle in eastern Lebanon blocked off streets and shouted slogans against Hezbollah and Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun.
The killing is certain to heighten tensions in Lebanon amid a deep political crisis pitting the anti-Syrian majority against the pro-Damascus opposition led by Hezbollah, which is determined to topple what it sees as a pro-US government.
"We believe the hand of Syria is all over the place," Saad al-Hariri, whose father Rafik al-Hariri was killed in a suicide truck bombing last year, said from Beirut shortly after Gemayel was shot dead.
"Syria strongly condemns the killing," the official Syrian news agency SANA said. The Shi'a group Hezbollah also condemned the "low criminal act" and urged an investigation.
Gemayel, elected to parliament in 2000 and again in 2005, is the third Lebanese anti-Syrian figure to be assassinated since former prime minister Hariri's killing in February 2005.
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