Lebanon's Druze leader Walid Jumblatt accused Syria on Monday of masterminding the killing of an anti-Syrian parliament member in a car bomb explosion in eastern Beirut, the al-Jazeera channel reported.

Jumblatt, also a MP, told the channel that he believed Christian MP Gebran Tueni was killed because he was "the voice of freedom" in Lebanon, like the slain former prime minister Rafik Hariri, who was killed in a massive car bombing in central Beirut on Feb. 14.

Tueni, an outspoken critic of Syria's influence in Lebanon, was killed, together with his driver and two other people, on Monday when a car bomb was detonated in the Christian-dominated Mekalis area.

Another ten people were wounded in the explosion, which also set nearby cars ablaze and damaged part of some buildings.

Police have cordoned off the area as rescue teams arrived to take the wounded to hospitals.

Tueni, also a prominent journalist in the An-Nahar newspaper, had been living in France for fear of assassination.

Jumblatt was one of the major opposition leaders during the anti-Syrian campaign following Hariri's assassination.

Lebanon has been gripped in a spate of bombing attacks since Hariri's assassination, which prompted a groundswell of opposition protests in Lebanon and widespread condemnation from across the world.

Mounting international pressure and fierce anti-Syrian sentiment in Lebanon finally succeeded in forcing Syria, a major power broker in Lebanon, to withdraw its forces in April, ending its 29 years of military presence in its tiny neighbor.

After that, a series of bombing attacks rattled Lebanon, mainly targeting anti-Syrian officials and public figures.

Damascus has repeatedly denied any involvement in the Hariri killing and the ensuing mysterious attacks, but an interim UN report on the probe into the incident implicated top Syrian and Lebanese security officials in the killing.

A final UN report was expected to be released on Monday.

Source: Xinhua