Rifaat al-Assad
On 21 June 2005, George Hawi, a former secretary general of the LCP, was killed in a car bombing in Beirut. Hawi, a recent critic of Syria, claimed a few days before his death that Rifaat al-Assad, uncle of Bashar al-Assad, Syria's current president, masterminded the 1977 assassination of Lebanese opposition leader Kamal Jumblatt. Allies of Hawi accused pro-Syrian forces in the Lebanese-security apparatus for the assassination. Émile Lahoud, then president of Lebanon, and the Syrian government denied this allegation. Foreign governments, including the White House, strongly condemned the killing.