Hariri court orders generals' release; case in disarray
A judge in the Hague-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon today ordered the release of the four senior members of Lebanon's internal security services who were arrested shortly after the February 2005 assassination of Rafiq Hariri and have been held in prison since then.
Bloomberg's Massoud Derhally reports:
- Judge Daniel Fransen of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon said the four generals held in Lebanon since 2005 are to be freed because there isn’t sufficient evidence to continue their detention, given that some witnesses have modified or retracted their statements. Proceedings were aired live from The Hague by Arab and Lebanese broadcasters and on the Internet.
There were “inconsistencies in the statements of key witnesses” and a “lack of corroborative evidence to support these statements,” Fransen said.
Former Canadian Deputy Attorney General Daniel Bellemare, who took over the investigation last year and became the court’s chief prosecutor on March 1, said he wouldn’t appeal the ruling.
The judge ordered the immediate release of Mustafa Hamdan, former head of the Presidential Guard; Jameel al-Sayyed, the former general security chief; Ali al-Hajj, the former internal security head; and Raymond Azar, the former army intelligence director.
However, once the cool, fact-based analysis of Bellemare and Fransen were brought to bear on the case, the evidence against the four generals was judged too thin to justify their continued incarceration.
Hariri's son Saad, one of the leaders of M-14, said he accepts and respects the STL's decision.
Derhally quotes LAU prof and Hizbullah expert Amal Saad-Ghorayeb as saying,
- "This verdict underlines how politicized the investigation was... It also discredits the Lebanese judiciary and the politicians who accused these generals.”
The ruling has “far-reaching political implications,” she said. “It may weaken the pro-Western coalition in the upcoming elections and strengthen Hezbollah and its allies.”
- The decision was... immediately hailed by the national opposition that announced the day "a day of joy for the Lebanese," regretting that such decision be made by the international justice not the Lebanese one.
In this context, Hezbollah issued a statement in which it hailed the international tribunal's decision to release the officers after a long arbitrary decision imposed unfairly by the March 14 authority without any charges. Hezbollah recalled that the detention of the four officers brushed aside all laws and legal procedures and caused a status of attenuation and politicization of one of the most important authorities responsible for the maintenance of life and law in the country which is the judicial authority.
Hillary does Beirut
History will judge, but Ms. Rice was definitely in and out of Lebanon ten months ago in a slim envelope of time, totaling 275 minutes!
On Sunday, April 26, 2009, that record was shattered. With the authority of a Shack O’Neal slam dunk in sudden death overtime in a NBA playoff, current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, to the awe of her advance team and bedazzled entourage, shaved no fewer than 110 minutes off Condi’s Record. Let the word go forth, that as of today, the new record for an American administration expressing eternal love to Lebanon is: 165 minutes flat –touchdown to wheels up!
In fairness to Ms. Rice, she should be granted a handicap because she did meet with some local March 14 leaders, whereas Ms. Clinton saw no one. Clinton beat former Secretary Rice bad when the stopwatch results were announced.
Soon we will hear another interesting story were the Justice system were politicised to befit of some.
In the new this story:
New evidence uncovered during the commission's investigation and other evidence not submitted at Megrahi's original trial led the commission to believe that Megrahi "may have suffered a miscarriage of justice," Forbes said.
The decision on whether he did suffer a miscarriage of justice is up to the appeal court, said Gerard Sinclair, the commission's chief executive.
So the question here if the miscarriage of justice proved will lead to the release of Al
Who benefited from the murder of Hariri? Not Lebanon.
Nor Syria, who was forced to remove their troops from Lebanon and got slammed in the court of interantional opinion for their alleged role.
But it sure cleared the way for Israel's murderous campaign against Lebanon in 2006.
Interesting aspect never raised by the msm or other entity, at least publicly, with interests in the Middle East as to why individual assassinations of Arab.and/or Muslim leaders or heads of political organizations seem to occur on a somewhat regular basis and never one assassination of an Israeli politician by a Palestenian or an Arab/Muslim.
As an aside to such acts. Has the question ever been raised as to how the Rumsfelds, Cheneys, Feiths and others became aware of the benefits of waterboarding? Givent their backgrounds none of them ever served in the miltary.
Now that the faux case has collapsed, we can perhaps entertain that the real perpetrators used the assassination to get Syria out of Lebanon, in order to.....but to say much more would be to bring into view those who really benefited by Hariris death!
Lebanon was carved out of Syria by the French and the fascist Maronites given excessive power over everyone else even though they were in the minority. This has been the rule wherever Eurocolonialism and racism flourished.
It is interesting that in 1400 years of Muslim dominance all these minorities flourished and their temples and churches were to a great extent unharmed. Meantime the Jews and Muslims of Andalucia and the Cathars of southern France met a completely different fate.