The Military Court on Wednesday sentenced former minister Michel Samaha to four and a half years of hard labor and stripped him of his civil rights, state-run National News Agency reported.

Samaha had been charged with transporting explosives in his car from Syria into Lebanon with the aim of staging bombings and assassinating Lebanese officials and religious figures at the behest of Syrian security services chief Ali Mamluk.

The court said Samaha, arrested in August 2012, would be released at the end of this year taking into account time served and because the judicial year amounts to nine months in Lebanon.

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