October 26, 2005
The UN 'report’
on the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese PM, bears all
the hallmarks of yet another set-up, no doubt 'inspired’ by US pressure
as part of the build-up to yet another Middle Eastern 'adventure’.
Even
less remarkable is the uncritical, indeed blind acceptance by the
Western media of the Report’s conclusions concerning those allegedly
behind the assassination.
But
before we dissect the abysmal failure of the Western media to
accurately report the findings of the UN Report, let’s take a look at
its conclusions.
First
of all, the Report offers no concrete evidence that any of the people
or institutions it claims were involved in Hariri’s assassination were
indeed the culprits. Instead, its assertions rely largely on three
elements:
- The
testimony of an unnamed witness, but who is undoubtedly Zuheir
al-Siddiq, a convicted felon, whose testimony lacks any material basis
aside from his assertions (see below).
-
Zuhir Ibn Mohamed Said Saddik, later charged with involvement in the
assassination and again whose testimony lacks any material basis other
than self-incrimination, which is used by the Report to add credibility
to his testimony.
-
A lot of information on the use of cellphones but which reveal nothing
about who was behind the assassination, merely that a lot of
individuals phoned each other an awful lot.
To
add insult to injury, at every critical juncture, the report admits
that it actually lacks any substantiation for any of its claims, saying
that "the investigation is not complete" and that "further
investigation is needed". Worse, early on it says that due to massive
tampering with the scene of the explosion, on and after the day,
accurate forensic investigation is all but impossible to carry out. The
report relies largely on hearsay, that is, statements by people who
claim to be have been told by a third party that such and such happened.
Yet in spite of this the Executive Summary tells us
Building
on the findings of the Commission and Lebanese investigations to date
and on the basis of the material and documentary evidence collected,
and the leads pursued until now, there is converging evidence pointing
at both Lebanese and Syrian involvement in this terrorist act. It is a
well known fact that Syrian Military Intelligence had a pervasive
presence in Lebanon at the least until the withdrawal of the Syrian
forces pursuant to resolution 1559.
Although
the report says it "builds" on the Lebanese investigations, there is no
mention of the fact that the Lebanese 'investigation’ was roundly
condemned as a whitewash and the fact that "Syrian Military
Intelligence had a pervasive presence" in Lebanon, it presents no
actual evidence of its involvement in the assassination aside from the
assertions of Zuheir al-Siddiq, a convicted felon and swindler and the
previously mentioned, Zuhir Ibn Mohamed Said Saddik. The Mehlis report
contains the following, almost certainly referring to Siddiq’s testimony
One
witness of Syrian origin but resident in Lebanon, who claims to have
worked for the Syrian intelligence services in Lebanon, has stated that
approximately two weeks after the adoption of Security Council
resolution 1559, senior Lebanese and Syrian officials decided to
assassinate Rafik Hariri. He claimed that a senior Lebanese security
official went several times to Syria to plan the crime, meeting once at
the Meridian Hotel in Damascus and several times at the Presidential
Place and the office of a senior Syrian security official. The last
meeting was held in the house of the same senior Syrian security
official approximately seven to 10 days before the assassination and
included another senior Lebanese security official. The witness had
close contact with high ranked Syrian officers posted in Lebanon. (p.35)
The UN had this to say about al-Siddiq’s testimony, as reported in Der Spiegel
[T]he
UN Commission which had submitted the Mehlis report to the UN Security
Council yesterday, is raising serious doubts about the reliability and
credibility of al-Siddiq’s declarations, since it was revealed that the
alleged former officer of the Syrian secret services had in reality
been convicted more than once for penal offences related to money
subtraction. [Der Spiegel] reports that the UN investigating Commission
is well aware that it had been lied [to] by Siddiq, who at first had
affirmed to have left Beirut one month before the assault on al-Hariri,
but then had to admit at the end of September his direct involvement in
the implementation of the crime. It is quite evident by now that the
witness had received money for his depositions, considering that his
siblings reveal to have received a phone-call from him from Paris, in
late summer, in which Siddiq announced "I have become a millionaire".
Doubts regarding the credibility of the man were further fuelled by the
revelation that Siddiq had been recommended to Mehlis by the long-term
Syrian renegate Rifaat al-Assad, an uncle of the Syrian President who
more than once offered himself as "alternative President of Syria" …
Siddiq is supposed to have declared that he had put his apartment in
Beirut to the disposition of the conspirators to kill Hariri, among
them several Syrian intelligence officials … But the Syrian government,
revealed Der Spiegel, had sent weeks ago a documentation regarding the
man to various Western governments, hoping that Detlev Mehlis would not
get caught in the trap of a notorious imposter. – 'Central witness to Mehlis report revealed as a paid swindler’, Hamburg, 22 October 2005
The telephone calls
The other key element in the report are the references to innumerable
telephone calls made by a variety of individuals before and on the day
of the assassination, yet it fails to show any connection between the
phone calls and the actual assassination, it’s no more than innuendo,
based in large measure on the video tape that contains a statement by a
Mr. Abu Adass (who has disappeared) that claims that a Lebanese-based
organization that nobody had ever heard of, al nasra wal-jihad fee
bilad Al-Sham, was responsible. The reason why the cellphone calls
figure so highly is that Mr. Adass, amongst other named individuals,
made the calls. But the report itself says
Conclusion:
There is no evidence that Mr. Abu Adass belonged to the group al nasra
wal-jihad fee bilad Al-Sham as claimed in the Al-Jazeera videotape, nor
even that such a group has ever existed or does exist now. There are no
indications (other than the videotape) that he drove a truck containing
the bomb that killed Hariri. The evidence does show that it is likely
that Mr. Abu Adass left his home on 16 January 2005 and was taken,
voluntarily or not, to Syria, where he has since disappeared. (p. 50)
The
report doesn’t explain why so much of its investigations focused on the
innumerable cellphone calls other than the fact that the two key
witnesses unsubstantiated claims implicate them, nor does it establish
any link between the bombing, the phone calls and the Syrian government.
The
alleged links, especially between (the unnamed) Siddiq and the various
named individuals bears all the hallmarks of a classical set-up, with
the one key witness, indeed the only one to actually directly implicate
leading figures in the Lebanese and Syrian governments in the
assassination, a discredited and suspect individual that the Syrian
government itself had, weeks before the release of Report, "sent …
documentation regarding the man to various Western governments, hoping
that Detlev Mehlis would not get caught in the trap of a notorious
imposter."
The truck
In spite of the fact that the report offers no actual forensic evidence
that it was a truck (stolen in Japan no less) packed with it claims,
1000kgs of TNT, the report nevertheless asserts that it was used as a
suicide bomb. No trace of the driver of the truck has been found, nor
does it offer any evidence that it was the truck other than the fact
that it was parked outside the hotel, admitting that because all the
relevant evidence was moved on the day of the bombing, made it
impossible to carry out a thorough forensic examination of the scene.
Based
on the testimony of Siddiq and one other, named witness, Zuhir Ibn
Mohamed Said Saddik, who later was implicated in the assassination
(mainly on his own admission rather than evidence), the report says
Conclusion:
There is probable cause to believe that the decision to assassinate
former Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri, could not have been taken without
the approval of top- ranked Syrian security official [sic] and could
not have been further organized without the collusion of their
counterparts in the Lebanese security services.
Thus
the report’s conclusions are based essentially on the testimony of just
two people, who provide no concrete evidence whatsoever to support
their assertions and furthermore, the fact that the report asserts that
"top-ranked Syrian security official" (should this be plural?) were
involved, it fails to prove that the Syrian government was involved and
in fact doesn’t state this. Yet the Western media have reported as
fact, that the report implicates the Syrian government. What the media
reports don’t quote is what the Report has to say on the impossibility
of actually collecting real, hard evidence
At
the outset, the time factor affecting the Commission has to be
emphasized. UNIIIC was declared operational four months after the
actual crime, which means that the perpetrators and their accomplices
have had plenty of time to destroy evidence and/or to collude with each
other, the ability to recall of potential witnesses has been
diminished, and previous omissions and inadvertent or deliberate loss
and destruction of evidence could not be undone. (p.32)
Not so surprising is the fact that aside from the Der Spiegel
story, not a single Western media outlet has mentioned the centrality
of Siddiq and Saddik to the report’s conclusions, nor has there been
any mention of the UN Commission’s own doubts about the report’s
conclusions. And in fact the report itself says this of Saddik’s
testimony
At
the present stage of investigation, a certain amount of information
given by Mr. Saddik cannot be confirmed through other evidence. (p.37)
Neither
does the report question the reliability of Siddiq’s testimony,
accepting at face value his assertions that he had direct contact with
Syrian government officials. All in all, the Report is an extremely
amateurish attempt to frame the Syrian government.
The Media
The Western media, for its part, has accepted the Report as fact and as
the final word on the subject, even though the Report itself says
several times, that further investigation is needed and that it is
"incomplete" and in fact the UN has given Mehlis a further two months
to complete it.
Thus
we find the BBC and other major media outlets acting as mouthpieces for
the US and UK governments, with story after story peddling the same
Western propaganda line about the need for sanctions against Syria and
even the need for 'regime change’ in Syria.
Typical of media coverage is the following BBC story
Evidence
suggests both Syrian and Lebanese involvement in the murder of former
Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri, a United Nations investigation has found. 'Hariri investigation: Key figures’, 21 October 2005
But
using the Report as its only source, it draws largely on the testimony
of the two 'witnesses’, Siddiq and Saddik, with no reference to the
suspect nature of Siddiq’s assertions, nor the fact that there is not a
single piece of actual evidence presented in the report that directly
implicates the Syrian government or indeed anyone at all. Like all the
other news reports, the BBC story makes no attempt to explain why the
report lacks any actual hard evidence. The BBC, along with the rest of
the mainstream media, assumes that the Report has got it right.
It
quotes from the report that "Zuhir Ibn Mohamed Said Saddik asserts that
the decision to kill Mr Hariri was taken in Syria by senior Lebanese
and Syrian officers", although, like the report, the BBC story states
that his testimony cannot be supported by fact, adding that "but the
fact that he implicates himself gives him added credibility," though
why the fact that he implicated himself adds credibility to his
assertions, is not explained except that this is what the report states.
The BBC story also uses the testimony of Siddiq who claimed that Asef Shawkat, head of Syrian military intelligence
…
forced Ahmed Abu Adass, an Islamic militant, to make a video claiming
responsibility for the bombing that killed Mr Hariri – two weeks before
the explosion.
Pointedly,
the Mehlis Report nowhere uses the term "Islamic militant" to describe
Ahmed Abu Adass, this is something the BBC bunged in to 'spice up’ the
story.
Likewise, a report in Canada’s Globe and Mail states
It’s
suggested in the report that the video "confession" may have been
personally ordered by General Assef Shawkat, the head of Syria’s
intelligence apparatus and brother-in-law to President Bashar Assad.
When investigators went to interview Mr. Abu Abass’s father about what
happened, he too turned up dead.
The 60-page report handed down by chief investigator Detlev Mehlis is
full of similarly damning details, all of which point to the conclusion
that Mr. Hariri’s murder was conceived at highest levels of Mr. Assad’s
regime, with significant help from senior Lebanese officials who served
in a government that was effectively a Syrian client. 'Abu Adass, the fall guy’, The Globe and Mail, October 22, 2005
Note
that it is only a "suggestion" that Shawkat may have ordered the
assassination as there is no proof offered. Another report in the Christian Science Monitor, with the loaded title, 'Syria implicated in death of Hariri’, October 21, 2005, incorrectly states that the Report alleges that
The
BBC reports that one of the most damning accusations made by Mehlis is
that Lebanese President Emile Lahood, a key ally of Syria, received a
phone call from one of the key figures in the plot, warning that the
assassination was about to take place. Mr. Lahood has denied the charge
and said that parts of the report are an attempt to discredit him.
What the Mehlis Report actually says is that Lahood received a phone call but there is no mention of the subject of the call
Abdel-Al
has been in frequent contact with Mahmoud Abdel-Al, his brother, who is
also active in Al-Ahbash. Mahmoud Abdel-Al’s telephone calls on 14
February are also interesting: he made a call minutes before the blast,
at 1247 hrs, to the mobile phone of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud and
at 1249 hrs had contact with Raymond Azar’s mobile telephone. (p. 58)
Nor does the BBC story state that the phone call was warning Lahood of an impending assassination. Instead it says,
The
Lebanese presidency issued a statement denying that a suspect
implicated in Hariri’s assassination had called President Emile Lahoud
minutes before the truck bomb exploded.
UN Hariri probe implicates Syria
Due
to the vague nature of the Report, the fact that it is incomplete and
because of its unsubstantiated and politically loaded implications, it
is possible for any and all conclusions to be drawn from it, which is
precisely what the media and politicians have done and why it takes the
form that it does. There could be no clearer example of the
relationship between propaganda and the press than the Mehlis Report,
serving as it does as a backdrop to USUK machinations in the region,
partially to draw attention away from the disastrous situation in Iraq
and also to 'soften up’ the public for any potential moves against
Syria.
What
the report does is create the context for the inflammatory and
threatening statements made by US secretary of state Condi Rice, US
ambassador to the UN Bolton, Jack Straw, British foreign secretary and
the Israeli government, all of whom have, in no uncertain terms used
the UN Report as a justification for 'regime change’ in Syria.