This blog of the Lebanese Center for Human Rights (CLDH) aims at granting the public opinion access to all information related to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon : daily press review in english, french and arabic ; UN documents, etc...

Ce blog du
Centre Libanais des droits humains (CLDH) a pour objectif de rendre accessible à l'opinion publique toute l'information relative au Tribunal Spécial pour le Liban : revue de presse quotidienne en anglais, francais et arabe ; documents onusiens ; rapports, etc...
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PRESS REVIEW

September 4, 2009 - Daily Star - Ex-generals launch fresh attacks on Hariri, judiciary

By Patrick Galey
Daily Star staff

BEIRUT: Two former Lebanese generals detained for four years in the investigation into the death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri launched a scathing attack on Thursday against some of the country’s most senior political and judicial figures. Former head of General Security Jamil al-Sayyed issued a statement criticizing what he alleged to be Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri’s “downplaying of the case of false witnesses” in the ongoing Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL).
He also attacked Hariri’s “stupid MPs from his block,” who Sayyed claimed “defend some of the judges and officers” charged with investigation the tribunal’s false witnesses.
Sayyed’s fellow detainee, former head of the ISF Ali al-Hajj, followed suit on Thursday with his own withering assessment on the way the judiciary has handled the case.
“The judiciary has not fulfilled its duties since 2005. [It] has been involved in all the inaccuracies related to the investigation into the Hariri murder,” he told Al-Manar television.
“The judiciary remaining silent on all the allegations made against it is a sign that the judiciary admits [they are true],” he said.
Future Movement sources were not immediately available to comment on either of the generals’ allegations.
However, a March 14 source, who has dealt extensively with the STL, told The Daily Star Thursday: “We have decided not to comment at all on this. [Sayyed and others] have been stressing this for a long time.”
Sayyed and Hajj were detained without trial – along with two other former security chiefs – before their release in April this year, after the STL prosecution found that incriminating evidence given by witnesses had been falsified.
The trial has come under heavy criticism for its handling of witnesses who are known to have falsely testified, including Mohammad Zuheir al-Siddiq, Hossam Hossam and Ibrahim Jajoura.
Spokeswoman for the STL’s prosecution office, Radhia Ashouri, told reporters in July that the men were no longer of interest for chief prosecutor Daniel Bellemare.
Sayyed plunged the STL back into the media glare after he accused Hariri on Sunday of faking evidence in his father’s assassination investigation.
Lebanon’s leading judiciary body, the Higher Judicial Council, met on Tuesday and condemned Sayyed’s attacks, saying they aimed “to destabilize the society’s trust in the judiciary.”
Sayyed also called the integrity of senior judicial figures into question. He said Hariri, rather than defending the men, “should have ordered that the [State Prosecutor] Sayyed Mirza and [Investigative Magistrate] Saqr Saqr be subject to judicial inspection.”
Criticism of Sayyed’s recent outbursts has been comparatively restrained. However, Future Movement MP Nuhad al-Mashnouq described the former Security Chief as a “peacock” and suggested Sayyed’s Sunday news conference may have been “Syria’s way of delivering a message to Prime Minister Hariri.”
Sayyed refused to respond on Thursday to any of Mashnouq’s claims.
Responsibility for Hariri’s assassination has been laid by many on Damascus, although Syria has denied involvement.
Sayyed’s fierce attack named several individuals who he said should be dealt with by judicial authorities for the way the investigation and, in particular, the problem of false witnesses had been handled.
“Mirza, Saqr [Internal Security Forces Head of Intelligence] Wissam al-Hassan and journalists Fares Kashan and Hani Hammoud and others involved in the plot of false witnesses [should] be sacked and imprisoned,” said Sayyed.
Fellow detainee Hajj accused the STL of being “extremely politicized,” – an allegation repeatedly denied by judicial and political figures.
When contacted by The Daily Star, the office of Mr Mirza said he “could not give any comments about this case, ever.”
Sayyed’s statement concluded by saying that the judiciary reaching a decision over false witnesses was in the country’s best interest.
“It is the right of the Lebanese, of Rafik Hariri, of the four former security chiefs and their families that the truth be uncovered with respect to the false witnesses’ case,” he said.

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Background - خلفية

On 13 December 2005 the Government of the Lebanese Republic requested the UN to establish a tribunal of an international character to try all those who are alleged responsible for the attack of 14 february 2005 that killed the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 22 others. The United Nations and the Lebanese Republic consequently negotiated an agreement on the establishment of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

Liens - Links - مواقع ذات صلة

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, David Schenker , March 30, 2010 . Beirut Spring: The Hariri Tribunal Goes Hunting for Hizballah


Frederic Megret, McGill University, 2008. A special tribunal for Lebanon: the UN Security Council and the emancipation of International Criminal Justice


International Center for Transitional Justice Handbook on the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, April 10, 2008


United Nations
Conférence de presse de Nicolas Michel, 19 Sept 2007
Conférence de presse de Nicolas Michel, 27 Mars 2008


Département d'Etat américain
* 2009 Human Rights report
* 2008 Human Rights report
* 2007 Human Rights report
* 2006 Human Rights report
* 2005 Human Rights report



ICG - International Crisis Group
The Hariri Tribunal: Separate the Political and the Judicial, 19 July, 2007. [Fr]


HCSS - Hague Centre for strategic studies
Hariri, Homicide and the Hague


Human Rights Watch
* Hariri Tribunal can restore faith in law, 11 may 2006
* Letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, april 27, 2006


Amnesty International
* STL insufficient without wider action to combat impunity
* Liban : le Tribunal de tous les dangers, mai 2007
* Jeu de mecano


Courrier de l'ACAT - Wadih Al Asmar
Le Tribunal spécial pour le Liban : entre espoir et inquiétude


Georges Corm
La justice penale internationale pour le Liban : bienfait ou malediction?


Nadim Shedadi and Elizabeth Wilmshurt, Chatham House
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon : the UN on Trial?, July 2007


Issam Michael Saliba, Law Library of Congress
International Tribunals, National Crimes and the Hariri Assassination : a novel development in International Criminal Law, June 2007


Mona Yacoubian, Council on Foreign Relations
Linkages between Special UN Tribunal, Lebanon, and Syria, June 1, 2007