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Master of puppets

Charbel Khalil made his name by finding Bin Laden, straightening out politicians and generally dismissing the country's leaders; something he still doesn't regret, even if it almost started a war.

So, essentially, you're a man with a death-wish...

It came down to two events really. One was a street event, when I imitated Hassan Nasrallah, and the Ministry shut my program down for a week. That one almost started a war. And a year before that I announced that we'd found Bin Laden in [former Prime Minister] Omar Karameh's attic. We were shut down for a month that time. I remember there was a diplomatic dinner with Hariri in Phoenicia and they started getting SMS messages about Bin Laden's capture [laughs]. The Lebanese and Syrian armies were on alert at the time and both CNN and Al Jazeera reported the incident. We kicked Wall Street up by nine points just with that bit of theatrics.

People didn't get that it was a joke?

It was subtle. Instead of LIVE I was broadcasting LIE on the screen corner. They just thought that we'd forgotten the V.

And missed the entire Bin Laden in an attic part... Well how does it feel?

It tells me that people are watching and that feels good. It tells me that the line of work I've chosen is successful and that people like it – I've been working on the same program for 13 years. It's been one of the most watched shows all along and that makes me proud.