General arrested in Hariri killing says he was asked to get Syrians to find someone to confess

April 10, 2008 
PR-Inside.com
Original Source: http://www.pr-inside.com/general-arrested-in-hariri-killing-says-r529417.htm

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - A Lebanese general under arrest for his alleged involvement in the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister claimed in a letter that a U.N. investigator asked him to tell the Syrian government to find a Syrian to confess to the killing.
In a «memorandum» to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ban Ki-moon obtained 

Wednesday by The Associated Press, Gen. Jamil El Sayed said he and seven other Lebanese were arbitrarily arrested for political reasons and have been held for more than 2 1/2 years without being charged or confronted with any evidence.
El Sayed is one of four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals under arrest in the February 2005 bombing that killed Rafik Hariri and 22 others. The four other Lebanese were not identified in the letter.
The U.N.'s new chief investigator into the assassination said he would not comment on the allegations. A previous investigator has said there were «indications» the generals were involved in the murder.
In the memorandum, El Sayed urged the U.N. chief to «defend justice and international norms by putting an end to this arbitrary and political detention as soon as possible.» Otherwise, he said, the credibility of the U.N., the Security Council and the U.N. commission investigating Hariri's assassination «will be jeopardized.
The new chief investigator, Daniel Bellemare, briefed the U.N. Security Council Tuesday on the Hariri investigation and was asked by Russia about the continued detention of the four generals _ and later by journalists about El Sayed's allegations. The general sent copies of his memorandum to council members.
«I will not comment on allegations,» Bellemare replied.
El Sayed claimed that three months prior to his arrest an investigator from the U.N. commission asked him to transmit a message to Syrian President Bashar Assad «which was meant to persuade him to present to the commission a Syrian victim of a certain caliber, who would confess to the crime and would eventually be found dead.
This would allow for an agreement with Syria similar to the one with Libya in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland in December 1988, he said.
A Libyan intelligence agent and a Libyan airline official were tried for the bombing and the intelligence agent was convicted, though a Scottish judicial commission said last June that new evidence indicates a miscarriage of justice may have occurred.
El Sayed said he told the U.N. investigator that he could not transmit such a message unless he was provided evidence «pointing in the direction of a Syrian involvement in the crime, otherwise the Syrians would consider that he is leading them to a trap.
The general said the investigator replied that the commission did not have such evidence and insisted that if he did not transmit the message for a Syrian to admit to the crime he would be blamed for the assassination.
Syria denies any involvement in the Hariri assassination, but the furor over the attack forced Syrian troops to withdraw from Lebanon after a 29-year presence.
El Sayed said the proposal to talk to Syria's Assad was made before and after his arrest on Aug. 30, 2005. «These facts are documented with evidence and proofs» which he said he gave the commission.
Bellemare said the generals' detention is the result of a decision by Lebanese judicial authorities, «pursuant to Lebanese criminal law.» He said he has provided Lebanese authorities «with the evidence that we have» but he refused to disclose any of his discussions with the country's prosecutor general.
The U.N. commission's first chief investigator, German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis who is now a judge, defended the arrest of the four generals in an interview last month with the private Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation television as «legally and fully justified.
«Upon suggestions of my investigators, I recommended to the Lebanese authorities to put these four officers into provisional detention because we had strong indications that they were about to leave the country,» Mehlis said. «We had indications that they were actively involved with the murder. So we felt to suggest to put them into provisional detention to have them available.

Yet, Mehlis said, «we always pointed out that until these persons were sentenced by a tribunal, they have to be considered as being innocent.
El Sayed claimed that Mehlis' successor as chief investigator, Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz who stepped down in December, reviewed the evidence for his arrest and determined it was «void.
But the general said Brammertz was told by Lebanon's prosecutor general that «political considerations» prevented him from releasing El Sayyed.
Calls for the release of the generals have come from Lebanon's pro-Syrian opposition as well as Shiite and Christian spiritual leaders. But members of the anti-Syrian majority have said they are guilty and deserve death.
The four generals _ Sayyed, the General Security chief and probably the most powerful Lebanese under Syrian dominance, the police chief, the army intelligence chief, and the head of the Presidential Guard Brigade _ allegedly met to plot the killing of Hariri.
Their arrests, however, were based on testimony of a key witness _ Syrian Mohammed Zuheir Siddiq _ who was later found to be not credible and was accused of participation in the assassination. He was living in France and an arrest warrant was issued for him, but France refused to hand him over because of Lebanon's death penalty.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said Tuesday that Siddiq had disappeared, and Bellemare told reporters, «I don't know where he is.