Bassel Fleihan

Bassel Fleihan (10 September 1963 – 18 April 2005; Arabic: باسل فليحان) was a Lebanese legislator and Minister of Economy and Trade.

He died from injuries sustained when a massive bomb exploded on the Beirut seafront as he passed by in former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri's motorcade on 14 February 2005.

The Special Tribunal for Lebanon convicted several Hezbollah members for their role in the bombing, which is widely believed to have been orchestrated by the Syrian government.

While working as an adviser at the ministry, from 1993 to 1999, Fleihan also taught economics at his old alma mater, the American University of Beirut (AUB).

[11] Fleihan played a role in the development of Lebanon's economic reform program, which was presented by Hariri to international donors at a Paris conference in November 2002.

Monday morning, while inside the parliament building debating the electoral law, he kept calling his office to make sure that the Valentine Day flowers he had requested would be delivered to his wife.

Although his wife had tried to convince him to extend his stay in Europe, Fleihan insisted on returning to Lebanon for an extraordinary Parliamentary session scheduled for 14 February 2005.

[15] Then he was airlifted to Percy Military Hospital in Clamart (suburb of Paris),[16] where he survived for 64 days before finally succumbing to his injuries.

[18][19] A website was created to A United Nations investigation of the incident by Detlev Mehlis, released in October 2005, pointed the finger at Syrian officials.

[21][22][23] In 2020, the UN-authorized Special Tribunal for Lebanon convicted Hezbollah military officer Salam Ayyash in absentia for playing a "central role" in the 2005 bombing.