Syria wants UN report changed after witness recants (AFP)

[Up2Late]

(I wonder if this has anything to do with the other two witnesses "accidental" deaths? It's just a coincidence I tell ya.)

Syria wants UN report changed after witness recants

29/11/2005 07h57

DAMASCUS (AFP) - Syrian officials demanded that a UN report implicating them over the February murder of five-time Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri be revised after state television broadcast the apparent recanting of a witness. Ibrahim Darraji, who heads Syria's own separate investigation into the killing, said the new testimony from Kurdish former intelligence agent Hassam Taher Hassam spelled the collapse of last month's findings by UN investigator Detlev Mehlis which prompted a Security Council resolution against Damascus.

His attack on the commission came just a day before Mehlis's team was due to hold its first interviews with senior Syrian officials at UN offices in Vienna ending a prolonged wrangle over the venue for the long-awaited interrogations. "From a legal point of view, the Mehlis report has collapsed," Darraji told reporters at a joint news conference with the purported witness in Damascus.

"It was based on the testimony of two key witnesses -- Mohammed Zuheir as-Sadiq who is now jailed in France and Mr Hassam," he said, standing alongside Hassam. "The ball is now in the Mehlis commission's court -- they based their findings on the statements of one person and he has now set the record straight."

In the lengthy interview broadcast Sunday evening, Hassam told state television that he had testified against the brother and brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad only under duress. "Maher al-Assad and Assaf Shawkat were the main officials in their sights .. they asked me to speak out against them and I said that they were the ones who ordered the murder," he said.

<http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/051129055747.eoe4texu.html>
(more at link above)

[acmavm]

1. Syria just needs to understand that the bush** administration has decided

that they are guilty and now it's case closed. Just like their little steel trap minds.

[allemand]

2. Joshua Landis gives an interesting analysis, as always:

How badly does the unveiling of the 'Masked Witness,' Hussam Taher Hussam, hurt the Mehlis Report? The Lebanese are claiming his Syria testimony is all crap in an effort to keep . Syrians have been loving it. I watched the series of interviews and the press conference with Hussam Taher Hussam, which have been continuously aired on Syrian TV yesterday. They were riveting TV. Hussam was good. He is smart and articulate in a "simple" way, peppering his responses with folksy aphorisms, which lent authority and seeming wisdom to normal Syrian talk. He didn't hesitate or look to the Syrian authorities sitting next to him for guidance in his testimony. He answered tough questions by journalists. He had clearly done his homework and was well prepared. He was also well groomed and had a youthful and energetic demeanor, which showed he had lived in Lebanon for a long time. The visual effect of seeing him answer the questions of Syrian and Lebanese journalists with spirit and confidence was powerful. Everyone here in Damascus was watching him and believing. Today, having been subject to the counter-attack from Lebanon, they are less sure.

What made Syrians believe him is that he was forthright about a number of small things most Syrians would hide. He said he had been working for Syrian intelligence while employed as a barber in Lebanon for over a decade. He said his Lebanese captors and handlers had treated him as a Kurd who could be easily bought, claiming that as a Kurd he should be against the government in Syria and that the Sunnis who are 80% of the Syrian population should be ruling and shouldn't let a minority of 10% rule them - a clear reference to the Alawites. The reason for making up such stories is obvious to non-Syrians, but to a Syrian, it made the speaker convincing because no Syrian would dare say such a thing on Syrian TV, even though the majority thinks just that. It is hard for a Syrian to believe that Hussam’s Syrian handlers would coach him to say something so forthright, because mentioning the issue of Alawi rule, even in such a case, is totally taboo. To hear someone mention Alawi rule on Syrian TV is a shocker. He was also forthright about the lures of money and the good life he was offered for his testimony. Syrians can identity with that.

What was not credible was his claim that Saad Hariri actually spoke to him about money. The Lebanese who prepared him for his false testimony were a "Whose Who" of Syria's enemies - Jubran Tueni, Saad Hariri, Walid Jumblat, etc. He even got May Shidiac’s name on record, claiming he had seen her from a distance while giving his false testimony at Monteverdi. (Shidiac denies even knowing where Monteverdi is.) None of these encounters would seem likely. The problem is that his testimony to Mehlis was exactly like his testimony against the Lebanese. He claimed to Mehlis that he had personal knowledge of all the top Syrian intelligence officers being involved in Hariri's murder. He also tied the Palestinians and fundamentalist Sunni Lebanese into the plot - much too neat. His Mehlis testimony was as fantastic as his testimony against Mehlis. The conclusion will have to be that he is completely discredited as a witness.

The most concrete evidence in Mehlis' report, directly linking the Hariri murder to the top Syrian intelligence personnel, is now unusable. Saddiq and Hussam were the two witnesses that allowed Mehlis to name the 6 top Syrian intelligence officers, including Maher and Asef, in his report. Both witnesses were plants. Stern magazine exposed Saddiq, who claimed he had been paid by Rifaat al-Asad, as a shyster. Now Syria has exposed Hussam.. My taxi driver yesterday said that Mehlis was not believable because three different people have said they were offered money to give him false testimony - the Syrian who languishes in a Turkish jail who went on TV to say he had been offered a lot of money to do what Mussam did, Saddiq, and now Hussam. This has become a pattern. Beginning with the double report issued by Mehlis - one naming names and the other not - and ending with Hussam's testimony, the Mehlis operation is beginning to look rather unprofessional. It is all getting curious and curiouser, as Alice said.

More:
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/L/Joshua.M.Landis-1/syriablog/2005/11/hussam-taher-hussam-masked-witness.htm

[AngryAmish]

3. Who killed Hariri?

I believe the UN report that blames the Syrians. It seems to have a ring of truth to me.

However I can be convinced otherwise. It seems you know much more about the region and the situation than I do. I would like to hear your theories.

[allemand]

5. I don't think that Bashar al-Asad had anything to with the killing.

Even Middle East Institute president Edward Walker said that it was "not his style".

There are certainly elements in the Syrian security forces who were both brutal and stupid enough to have done it. In my view, they are still the most likely culprits, but that doesn't mean that there are no other suspects. One Iraqi journalist and blogger for example thinks that Walid Jumblat could have been behind the assassination:
http://talismangate.blogspot.com/

Western intelligence agencies claim to have evidence of Syrian involvement, but so far they have not handed it over to Mehlis. As the case he presented in the UN report has all but collapsed, now would certainly be a good moment to do so. Then we will see if they are as reliable as the claims about Iraqi WMDs...

[AngryAmish]

6. It seems unlikely that Jumblat would do it

But Lebanese and Syrian politics is not my area of expertise -- in fact I had to look up Jumblat to find out who he was.

If Jumblat hates the Syrians (true) why kill the one guy who also wanted them out?

[allemand]

8. Perhaps. I just quoted Nibras Kazimi's "theory" as an example. There are

many other possible suspects: Islamists, Lebanese security forces or intelligence agencies, foreign intelligence services, rival politicians, even rival mafias. As I said before, in my opinion some level of Syrian involvement is still the most likely scenario, but the investigation should follow all possible leads, and I have little confidence that Mehlis is doing that.

For a taste of the vitriol of Lebanese politics I highly recommend the aptly named "angryarab" blog:
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
It's interesting to see how deep the divisions between the different groups in Lebanon still are and how politics splits neatly along religious lines. One would have to take that into account in order to be able to decide if, for example, Jumblat had a motive to kill Hariri. Kazimi seems to have suspected him at one point, but I see that he has now retracted it:

"I did suspect Junmulat at one point in my research, and will publish my analyses soon. For the record, I believe I was mistaken about his role. But hey, a good rule of thumb when analyzing Lebanon is keeping Walid Beg near the top of the usual suspects list every time something bad happens."
http://talismangate.blogspot.com/2005/11/plot-thickens-mehlis-witness-no-1.html

[High Plains]

10. Because it got them out?

These kinds of events make me want to ask "cui bono"? Who benefits?

[Igel]

12. But of course,

'Cui bono?' always assumes that what happened is precisely and only what the perpetrator of the act intended would happen, and that the "good" that we perceive is the good that the perpetrator desired.

Always two very tricky questions.

[Up2Late]

7. Until I see a more logical explanation, I will continue to believe that...

...bomb was planted by or with full knowledge of the CIA, or whoever in our government who the neo-Cons work with or who function in a similar way. Remember the so-called "Ceder Revolution?" Sort of similar to the "Rose Revolution" and the "Orange Revolution," and a few other less publicized "revolutions" too.

This was the quickest way to cause public outrage so that the public would call for Syria to get out of Lebanon. The Lebanon coast, especially now that it's almost completely rebuilt, is a beautiful place, and a perfect place to build some very expensive beach resorts (were a lot of money could be made though investment). Combined that with a glut of desperately poor people who are desperate for good jobs, and you just have to know the world's wealthy are salivating at the money making possibilities.

[MisterP]

9. and a perfect series of ports for north Iraqi oil and Syrian water

in the future.

[donkeyotay]

4. This is reason #1 that Bolton is at the UN

Ask a few questions. When Harari was assassinated, who benefited? Assad? Then we are to believe that when Assad wanted this dirty deed done, he turned to his brother. Why wouldn't he use some of his special forces? Another interesting bit from the past is that after 9-11 Syria made overtures to the US to cooperate, but that relationship was sabotaged. There is a group of neocons working on some US committee for free Lebanon that is essentially the same folks who brought us Iraq. And Bolton is at the UN to accomplish something. Hmmm. But why be suspicious? I believe everything television tells me even though I know that they have lied repeatedly in the past.

[Wordie]

11. Syria queries UN evidence in Hariri killing (witness retracts statements)

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=6276866&cKey=1133283034000
<snip>
Wednesday 30.11.2005, CET 11:47



November 29, 2005 5:50 PM

Syria queries UN evidence in Hariri killing

By Inal Ersan

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - In an apparent campaign to discredit the initial findings of a U.N. inquiry into the killing of a former Lebanese prime minister, Syria called on Tuesday for evidence implicating Syrians to be scrutinised.

The U.N. Security Council has threatened Damascus with unspecified action unless it cooperates fully with the investigation into Rafik al-Hariri's February 14 murder.

But a Syrian witness, Hosam Taher Hosam, has accused Lebanese officials of an elaborate scheme of threats, bribery and torture to induce him to testify falsely against Syria and said the inquiry's initial findings rested largely on his lies.



November 29, 2005 5:50 PM

Syria queries UN evidence in Hariri killing

By Inal Ersan

DAMASCUS (Reuters) - In an apparent campaign to discredit the initial findings of a U.N. inquiry into the killing of a former Lebanese prime minister, Syria called on Tuesday for evidence implicating Syrians to be scrutinised.

The U.N. Security Council has threatened Damascus with unspecified action unless it cooperates fully with the investigation into Rafik al-Hariri's February 14 murder.

But a Syrian witness, Hosam Taher Hosam, has accused Lebanese officials of an elaborate scheme of threats, bribery and torture to induce him to testify falsely against Syria and said the inquiry's initial findings rested largely on his lies.

A Foreign Ministry statement on Tuesday suggested that the interim report by chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis in October was flawed by reliance on Hosam's testimony. <unsnip>

...and there were rumblings of war over this??? If it turns out the witness really does retract his statements, will John Bolton apologize?