| I know Seafarious was all over this yesterday, but it's too much fun to let drop... |
 Syrian lawmakers have voted unanimously to call on the government to put Abdel-Halim Khaddam, the former vice-president, on trial for treason after he publicly broke with Bashar al-Assad, the president. "We call on the justice minister to try Abdel-Halim Khaddam for grand treason and to take the necessary measures," Mahmoud al-Abrash, the parliament speaker, said at the end of a televised session on Saturday.
| Since he's now (somewhat) safely ensconced in Gay Paree, that will presumably involve sending somebody there to boom his car or help him commit suicide. That may be too much even for the Frenchies. Their military could end up mistaking Damascus for Ivory Coast or someplace. |
Speaking from Paris, Khaddam on Friday launched an unprecedented attack on al-Assad, saying he had threatened Rafiq al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister who was assassinated in February. Khaddam, who moved to Paris after resigning in June, accused the government of making political blunders in Lebanon and of failing to deliver economic and political reforms at home, leaving millions of Syrians to go hungry.
| That confirms the story about Pencilneck threatening Hariri, of course. The rest of it's self-evidently true — the regime's bitch isn't that it's true, but that he's talking about it. |
Legislator Umeima Faddoul told the parliament session: "I ask the Syrian leadership to try him ... for humiliating 10 million Syrians when he said half of the Syrian people are eating from the garbage. I tell him, those who eat from the garbage are traitors like you ... Treason is the darkest shade of black."
| So he admits that they're eating from the garbage? |
Khaddam, a veteran aide to the president's father, the late Hafez al-Assad who ruled Syria for 30 years, would not speculate on who had ordered al-Hariri's murder, saying "we must wait" for the results of a UN inquiry that has already implicated senior Syrian officials.
| So far who dunnit looks pretty obvious. I suppose he could have cheesed off the local crooks, but that wouldn't account for the subsequent booms of people who griped about the Syrians. For that matter, it wouldn't account for the people who were boomed before Hariri, to include Hariri's teevee station. |
Legislator after legislator stood up in parliament to accuse Khaddam of corruption and treason during four decades as a senior official in Syria.
| So why didn't they hang him at any point during those four decades? Presumably he was available... |
Some also accused him of betraying his country by moving to France.
| Where he's (somewhat) out of reach of the car boomers' corps... |
"You don't deserve to be a Syrian," said a lawmaker, who did not give his name. "You can go to hell because no Syrian will forgive you, who hoped to return to your country one day on an American tank."
Another lawmaker said: "His comments last night constitute a criminal offence that reaches the level of treason and we demand he be put to trial before the Syrian security high court."
| Recipe for rabbit stew: First catch a rabbit... |
Khaddam's comments are likely to intensify international pressure on Damascus which has been mounting since the Beirut truck bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others. Syria has denied involvement but pulled its troops out of Lebanon in April after a 29-year military presence.
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