Kintar appreciated Tehran΄s role in supporting Lebanese & Palestinian resistance to "Israel"

Source: AFP, 30-1-2009

Samir Kintar, who was freed by "Israel" in a prisoner swap last year, praised Iran for its support of the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance to "Israel" during a visit to Tehran on Thursday.

"We have to resist against American occupation because Americans are the supporters of the tyrants and in the region we have to resist the Zionist regime and destroy it," Kintar said in a speech before being honored by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Kintar was released in July in a prisoner swap between Lebanon and "Israel" after three decades of behind bars in "Israel".
He said he appreciated the role played by Tehran in supporting the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance to "Israel".

"Today we meet in Iran and we are on the threshold of the 30th anniversary of a great revolution led by the great imam Khomeini," he said referring to the overthrow of Iran's monarchy in 1979.
He said he still wanted to confront "Israel".

"I stayed in prison for 30 years and I am still waiting for the date to confront the occupying enemy," he said.
"Every drop of blood and every bit of pain we went through is the price we paid for victory. This was the situation in Iran, in Lebanon in 2000 and in 2006. Gaza is waiting for a similar future."
Ahmadinejad gave Kintar a statue of two prisoners trying to break through the bars of a jail cell, as the two men kissed each other in greeting.

Iran's president told Kintar and some 40 other former prisoners who had been jailed in "Israel", Iraq and under the regime of the former shah of Iran, that their struggle was nearing an end.

"In our contemporary time we have witnessed people enduring American and Western presence and presence of the Zionist regime and all I can say in one sentence is that your struggle has one consequence... the darkness is over and our sun of justice is on the verge of rising," Ahmadinejad said.