Habib Tanious Shartouni

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Habib Tanious Shartouni (Arabic:حبيب الشرتوني) was a Syrian agent who assassinated the Lebanese president-elect Bashir Gemayel.^[1]

Habib Tanious Shartouni, a Christian Maronite, born on 24 April 1958 in Aley Mount Lebanon. He was influenced by the ideas of the Syrian Socialist National Party (SSNP) in the early 1970s through a close friend called Henry Hani. After the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War he started going frequently to an SSNP station in Aley where he served as a night guard. Afterwards he was advised by his parents to leave Lebanon to Cyprus and then to France where he studied for four years and obtained a degree in business from one of Paris universities. He spent the first year in Paris without practicing politics. In the summer of 1977 and during his presence in Lebanon he went several times to the SSNP headquarter where he swore the oath of affiliation and became an official member of the party.^[2]

He went back to France having the address of the party's delegate in Paris and started attending the secret meetings of the party, wherein he met a guy called Nabil Alam who was the chief of interior of the party, and he was so impressed by his personality.

After finishing his studies he returned to Lebanon, where he started practicing politics and became a very close friend to Nabil Alam who finally convinced him of the necessity of getting rid of Bashir Gemayel, as he used to live in the third floor of the premise where the Kataeb headquarter is located and where Bashir goes often.

He started carrying explosives from Nabil Alam's house in West Beirut to his place in Ashrafieh above the Kataeb headquarter using his father's car. After carrying all the necessary explosives successfully he received the detonator from Nabil Alam where he managed to carry it easily to his place and put it along with the explosives.

Then on the night of September 13, 1982, he sneaked onto the second floor of the building housing the Kataeb Party Office in Ashrafieh. His behavior did not arouse suspicion since he lived on the third floor of the same building with his sister and grandparents. He got into the room right above the platform on which Bashir and his companions would be seated and stashed about 40 to 50 kg of high explosives.

The next afternoon Shartouni stuck around the place until he made sure Bashir arrived, and walked out of the building. He ran to the sector of Nasra with the detonator. Right after the blast Shartuni walked back to the premises to check the result.

Two days later Shartouni was arrested by the Lebanese Forces.^[3] Stating with no regrets or fear, the 26-year-old Shartouni confessed at a press conference before being handed over to the Lebanese Justice by the Lebanese Forces, he called Bashir a traitor and accused him of selling the country to Israel. Shartouni confessed, "I was given the explosives and the fancy long-range electronic detonator in West Beirut’s Ras Beirut neighborhood by Nabil El Alam, Chief intelligence of the Party. "Alam" had close ties to the Syrian Intelligence Services and right after the assassination fled to Syria and vanished into thin air, the Syrians operated with the Secret Services of an eastern country.

Shartouni was handed to the Lebanese justice where Amine Gemayel, Bashir's elder brother, succeeded him as president right after the assassination.
Habib spent eight years in jail without trial. Not before 13 October 1990 when he was freed from his jail by Syrian troops that attacked to Baabda to end Michel Aoun's constitutional government.