Lebanese former minister filmed plotting assassinations for Assad

It's a video that has shocked Lebanon - a former minister caught red-handed plotting bombings and asssassinations, and handing over explosives and cash for the operation.

Lebanon's Future TV network broadcast the video which shows Michel Samaha's leading role in the operation.

In the video, also broadcast by other Lebanese channels, Samaha tells the man recording, Milad Kfoury, that no one is aware of the operation, apart from "Ali and the president", in reference to Syrian spy chief Ali Mamlouk and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.  

Little did Samaha know that Kfoury was an informant of the Information Branch of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces.

Samaha, who was convicted on Wednesday and sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison by Lebanon's Military Tribunal, appears in the video to be reassuring Kfoury that the operation would remain a secret, and instructs him on how to carry explosives in batches using his car from Syria to Lebanon.

Samaha's sentence sparked outrage in Lebanon, as many saw it as too lenient considering the nature of the charges.

He was arrested in August 2012 on charges of transporting explosives from the office of Mamlouk to Lebanon, and handing them over, along with $170,000, to a person who was supposed to carry out bombings with the aim of instigating sectarian strife.

Samaha is a leading figure in the March 8 political alliance in Lebanon and served as an unofficial adviser to Assad. He was primarily tasked with coordinating relations between the Syrian regime and a number of European governments.