Lebanese PM says Lebanon will fund Hariri tribunal

BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s prime minister says his country will pay its share of funds for a U.N.-backed tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of a Lebanese statesman.

Najib Mikati had threatened to step down if the country’s Cabinet refuses to fund the court investigating the death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Prime Minister Mikati’s announcement at a press conference on Wednesday averts a government collapse that would almost certainly have plunged the deeply divided country into a political crisis at a critical time in the Middle East.

Mikati says he made the transfer earlier Wednesday of Lebanon’s about $30 million share in the required funding for the Netherlands-based court.