Lebanon releases Hariri suspects

Mitchell Prothero, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: April 30. 2009 2:05AM UAE / April 29. 2009 10:05PM GMT

The then-Presidential Guards commander, Brig Gen Mustafa Hamdan, is carried by supporters as they celebrate his release from prison. AP

BEIRUT // The decision by a UN tribunal yesterday to release four Lebanese generals detained in connection with the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri was met with almost equal parts resentment and elation here yesterday.

The men, four of the top intelligence officials at the time of the assassination, were detained shortly after the bombing that set Lebanon on a path to years of political turmoil.

The security chief, Major Gen Jamil al Sayyed; Major Gen Ali al Hajj, the ex-Internal Security Forces director general; Brig Gen Raymond Azar, the former military intelligence chief; and the then-Presidential Guards commander, Brig Gen Mustafa Hamdan, languished in prison in Lebanon as the country went through a series of political crises ranging from the ouster of Syrian troops to a crippling year-and-a-half sit in by pro-Hizbollah opposition demonstrators in the heart of the city.

The ruling yesterday was the first major decision by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon inaugurated in The Hague earlier this year.

In a televised hearing Judge Daniel Fransen ordered the four men freed after prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence to justify continuing to hold them.

Prosecutors for the tribunal had been embarrassed by the repeated inaccuracies in the testimony of key witnesses throughout the investigation of the murder of Hariri and 22 others in Feb 2005.

In releasing the men, Judge Fransen said there were “inconsistencies in the statements of key witnesses” and a “lack of corroborative evidence to support these statements”.

The release yesterday underscored the deep divide in the country. The mostly Shiite supporters of the opposition decried the arrests as illegal and celebrated the release, while sulking Sunni and Christian backers of Hariri maintained that the four men were connected to the murder.

Saad Hariri, son of the late Hariri and a leader of the March 14 Movement, welcomed the ruling in the case of his father as a sign of progress.

“The Special Tribunal for Lebanon is now responsible for what happens after its decisions, which we accept and respect,” Mr Hariri said in a televised press conference. “We do not want revenge. All we want is justice.”

In the Hizbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, the news of the release was greeted with fireworks, celebratory gun and rocket fire and cheering, as some highlighted the upset for the March 14 Movement’s effort to push the tribunal along.

“The problem was that once they had to drop the original testimony from sources they later found were lying, there was virtually no evidence against the men,” according to a senior intelligence official.

“I personally am sure that Syria did this crime against Hariri, but I can’t believe they would be so stupid as to use Lebanese intelligence officials.”

A lawyer for one of the accused insisted that the decision was a brave step towards establishing the transparent rule of law.

“After 44 months, justice has been done and it should have been 43 months ago,” Naji Bustany, counsel for the former head of the presidential guard Hamdan and the former military intelligence chief Azar, told Agence France-Presse.

Mr Bustany welcomed the ruling by The Hague-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon, saying the court’s pretrial judge and the prosecutor had shown objectivity and fairness in their decision.

Jamiil Sayyed told Hizbollah-aligned al Manar television that she never stopped believing her husband was innocent and had only been jailed for political reasons.

“This is the truth that we were looking for, this the truth that everyone should know about, not the kind of truth that they are talking about,” she said. “God is Great, I’m glad everyone is listing to the truth that we have been waiting for, from the first day. This is the day we were waiting for but I want to ask them what did they benefit throughout the 4 years they were claiming that my husband is a criminal.”

Lebanon’s Shiite population and many of their allies have long alleged that the four generals were being framed for political reasons.

As Hizbollah supporters celebrated the release, shocked residents of the Sunni working-class stronghold of Tareq Jiddedeh, just a kilometre away, said their hopes for the tribunal had been dashed.

“It looks like the Syrians have signed a settlement and the whole tribunal is now politicised,” said Abu Ibrahim, a shopkeeper. “These criminals, we are sure they are the ones who were behind the murder of the hero Rafiq Hariri.”

mprothero@thenational.ae