Daily Star - Attorneys call for release of detained security chiefs, August 30, 2007
BEIRUT: Attorneys of the detained four former security chiefs for alleged involvement in the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri, demanded on Wednesday that their clients be "immediately" released, describing their confinement as based on "political rather than legal considerations."
"The incarceration of the four security chiefs is a real tragedy and their continuing confinement serves a sole purpose, that of transferring their case to the international tribunal into the assassination," Issam Karam attorney of the former head of the Internal Security Forces told reporters.
The generals - Jamil Sayyed of General Security, Raymond Azar of Army Intelligence, Mustafa Hamdan of the Presidential Guard and Hajj - were detained in August 2005.
Attorneys Akram Azoury, Naji Boustany, and Karam held a news conference at the Coral Beach Hotel to mark the two-year confinement of the former security chiefs.
Karam said he was surprised that his client was kept in confinement, after the UN probe into the assassination represented by its head Serge Brammertz "has, five times, officially declared that the arrest of the four former security generals falls strictly within the responsibilities of the Lebanese judiciary and the [UN] committee was not to be held responsible for it."
Karam said that the judiciary has not presented "a single evidence or testimony which condemn the former generals," adding that the "procrastination exhibited aims to transfer the case to the international tribunal so as to release the judiciary from any responsibility concerning the illegal confinement."
"The numerous lawsuits which have flooded against chief of Lebanese investigations into the assassination, Magistrate Elias Eid, demanding that he be replaced for incompetence are yet another means to delay the release of the four officers," Karam added.
Mohammad Mattar, the lawyer for the heirs of four Hariri bodyguards who died in the bombing, filed a request in June that Eid be replaced. Mattar cited Eid's alleged "intention" to release Azar and Sayyed before the conclusion of the investigation. He also cited Eid's "friendly relations" with the lawyers and families of the four officers.
In a statement Monday, Sayyed's attorney Azoury held the executive authorities responsible for the ongoing detention, adding that lawsuits against Eid which have all been rejected aim at creating a judicial vacuum.
"They will keep on pressing and filing lawsuits until they get him out," he said.
The Court of Appeals had announced that freezing the authorities of an investigative magistrate did not "fall among its responsibilities."
"Both the judicial as well as the executive authorities should be held responsible if any vacuum was created if Judge Eid was dismissed from his current responsibilities," Azoury said.
BEIRUT: Attorneys of the detained four former security chiefs for alleged involvement in the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri, demanded on Wednesday that their clients be "immediately" released, describing their confinement as based on "political rather than legal considerations."
"The incarceration of the four security chiefs is a real tragedy and their continuing confinement serves a sole purpose, that of transferring their case to the international tribunal into the assassination," Issam Karam attorney of the former head of the Internal Security Forces told reporters.
The generals - Jamil Sayyed of General Security, Raymond Azar of Army Intelligence, Mustafa Hamdan of the Presidential Guard and Hajj - were detained in August 2005.
Attorneys Akram Azoury, Naji Boustany, and Karam held a news conference at the Coral Beach Hotel to mark the two-year confinement of the former security chiefs.
Karam said he was surprised that his client was kept in confinement, after the UN probe into the assassination represented by its head Serge Brammertz "has, five times, officially declared that the arrest of the four former security generals falls strictly within the responsibilities of the Lebanese judiciary and the [UN] committee was not to be held responsible for it."
Karam said that the judiciary has not presented "a single evidence or testimony which condemn the former generals," adding that the "procrastination exhibited aims to transfer the case to the international tribunal so as to release the judiciary from any responsibility concerning the illegal confinement."
"The numerous lawsuits which have flooded against chief of Lebanese investigations into the assassination, Magistrate Elias Eid, demanding that he be replaced for incompetence are yet another means to delay the release of the four officers," Karam added.
Mohammad Mattar, the lawyer for the heirs of four Hariri bodyguards who died in the bombing, filed a request in June that Eid be replaced. Mattar cited Eid's alleged "intention" to release Azar and Sayyed before the conclusion of the investigation. He also cited Eid's "friendly relations" with the lawyers and families of the four officers.
In a statement Monday, Sayyed's attorney Azoury held the executive authorities responsible for the ongoing detention, adding that lawsuits against Eid which have all been rejected aim at creating a judicial vacuum.
"They will keep on pressing and filing lawsuits until they get him out," he said.
The Court of Appeals had announced that freezing the authorities of an investigative magistrate did not "fall among its responsibilities."
"Both the judicial as well as the executive authorities should be held responsible if any vacuum was created if Judge Eid was dismissed from his current responsibilities," Azoury said.
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