NNA - Caretaker Defense Minister Maurice Slim, representing the Lebanese Republic, laid a wreath today at the statue of Prince Fakhreddine at the entrance to the Ministry of National Defense in Yarzeh on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Lebanon's independence.

After Slim laid the wreath, the army band played the Chorus of the Dead and parts of the national anthem and the martyrs’ anthem.

========R.Sh.