| Arabia | |
| UAE jails Syrian "king witness" in Hariri probe | |
| 2009-10-06 | |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] A Syrian who was a prosecution witness in the inquiry into the assassination of Lebanon's ex-premier Rafiq al-Hariri was on Monday given six months in jail and deportation for entering the UAE on a forged Czech passport. The Supreme State Security Court in Abu Dhabi pronounced its verdict, which cannot be appealed, in the presence of defendant Mohammed Zuhair al-Siddiq, a former member of Syria's intelligence services. "The penalty ends in mid-October," defense lawyer Fahd al-Sabhan told reporters after the verdict was announced, referring to the time his client has already spent in custody.
"We have previously annulled the request that he be handed in to the Syrian authorities. But he could be deported or not deported depending on the sovereign executive decision." During the hearing Siddiq asked the court how he could be deported when he has a court order that bans his being handed over to Damascus. Siddiq, in initial reports of the United Nations inquiry commission into the February 2005 killing of Hariri in a huge seafront bomb blast in Beirut, was described as a key witness. Nicknamed the "king witness," Siddiq claimed that Lebanon's former pro-Syrian president Emile Lahoud and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad gave the order to kill the wealthy businessman who opposed the grip exercised by Damascus over its tiny neighbor. However, Siddiq later recanted, and Lebanese and Syrian judicial authorities accused him of lying. In May, the prosecutor at the international tribunal charged with bringing Hariri's killers to justice said Siddiq was no longer a credible witness and was of no interest to the inquiry. Siddiq was arrested in France in 2005 under an international warrant as part of the investigation into Hariri's killing. The French judicial authorities refused to hand him over to Lebanon because of the "absence of a guarantee that he would not be subject to the death penalty." | |
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| Arabia |
| UAE holds suspect in LebanonŽs Hariri case: TV |
| 2009-04-20 |
| [Al Arabiya Latest] The United Arab Emirates arrested a suspect in the investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, Al Arabiya TV reported on Sunday. Mohammed Zuhair al-Siddiq was arrested in the emirate of Sharjah and was being held by UAE security authorities, the TV report said, giving no more details. An international court convened in The Hague in March to try suspects in the murder, four years after the politician's death. Lebanese authorities recently released on bail three men held in connection with the killing, but still hold four generals who were the commanders of Lebanon's pro-Syrian security establishment at the time. The whereabouts of Siddiq, a former Syrian intelligence officer, have been unknown since March 2008 when he left France. Lebanon's prosecutors believed Siddiq had an indirect role in the Feb. 14, 2005, killing of Hariri and 22 others, and they charged him with murder in October 2005. |
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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Lebanon charges Syrian with murder in Hariri probe |
| 2005-10-18 |
| Lebanon has charged with murder a key Syrian witness detained in France over the assassination of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri, judicial sources said on Tuesday. French police detained Mohammed Zuhair al-Siddiq, a witness in a U.N. inquiry into Hariri's February killing, on Sunday on an international warrant. Lebanese judicial sources said they had asked for Siddiq's detention based on the murder charges because they believed he had an indirect role in Hariri's killing and had misled international investigators. Siddiq faces the same charges as four pro-Syrian generals detained since August on the recommendation of chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis and charged with murder, attempted murder and carrying out a terrorist act in connection with Hariri's assassination, they said. Lebanon has asked that Siddiq be extradited but was awaiting a French decision on the issue, they added. French judicial sources said on Monday Beirut had 30 days to provide the necessary documents for the extradition request. When he presents his report to the United Nations this week, Mehlis is expected to implicate Syrian officials in the assassination that plunged Lebanon into its worst security and political crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war. Lebanon's public prosecutor has also asked the central bank to lift its traditional banking secrecy to freeze accounts held by the four generals, judicial and banking sources said. The central bank declined to comment, but banking sources in Lebanon said it was certain to comply after opening up their accounts and those of several other Syrian and Lebanese figures to investigators in September. Among them was Syrian Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan, who was found dead in his office last week, three weeks after he was questioned by the U.N. team probing Hariri's death. "They have asked for the accounts of the generals to be frozen and banking secrecy to be lifted awaiting further scrutiny of movements into and out of these accounts as this might help with the investigation," one banking source said. "I think it is not just the generals. There are others but their names have not come out yet." Lebanese political sources say Siddiq was one of the leading witnesses in the probe, having said he attended meetings at which Hariri's killing was discussed, but became a suspect when it transpired he had misled investigators. Lebanese newspapers reported that suspicions had been raised when Siddiq told investigators he was nearby when the bomb blast that killed Hariri and 20 others went off. Syrian officials have privately said from the start that Siddiq was unreliable and was wanted in his own country on charges of fraud and desertion. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad told CNN shortly before Kanaan's death that his country was not involved in Hariri's death and that he could never have ordered the murder. Should the United Nations conclude that Syrians were involved, they would be considered "traitors" who would face an international court or Syrian justice, he said. International pressure and Lebanese street protests in the aftermath of Hariri's death ultimately forced Syria to end its 29-year military presence in neighboring Lebanon, where it was the main power broker after the war. |
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