February 20,2010 - Daily Star Lebanon Hizbullah member admits to killing army officer in 2008.doc

Copyright (c) 2010 The Daily Star

Saturday, February 20, 2010
Hizbullah member admits to killing army officer in 2008


By Youssef Diab
Daily Star staff

BEIRUT: A member of Hizbullah admitted during a court hearing on Friday to accidentally killing a Lebanese Army officer in 2008.
The confession came during a hearing at the Military Tribunal in the case of Hizbullah member Mustafa Hassan Moqaddam, who is suspected of firing gunshots at a Lebanese Army helicopter on August 28, 2008, and unintentionally killing its pilot, First Lieutenant Samer Hanna.
Moqaddam confessed during questioning that he had fired at the helicopter after it landed on a hill near a Hizbullah post in Tellet Sojod in south Lebanon. He said he hadn’t seen the aircraft’s Lebanese flag and had thought it to be Israeli, adding that he had heard other gunshots fired at the helicopter from a different location.
Hanna’s colleague First Lieutenant Mahmoud Abboud was with him at the time of the incident and told the tribunal that the two men had been on a training mission, and that they had used the site for training several times in the past.
“In two weeks we landed there four times without a problem,” Abboud said.
He added that after the shooting, several armed men appeared and confiscated his cell phone. Abboud said he saw no buildings indicating an open Hizbullah presence in the area, but only “covered” structures.
The tribunal also listened to the testimony of Colonel Roger Helou, the commander of the Air Force, who said the army chose the location after Israel withdrew from it in order to train soldiers working in the south.
Helou added that army personnel headed to the site after losing contact with the helicopter, and that he saw a “troubled and confused man surrounded by many people who were trying to calm him down.”
The former head of the Army Intelligence office in Jezzine, Colonel Adnan Gheith, said a Hizbullah member had told him two days before the incident that the area was a Hizbullah military zone. – The Daily Star


Copyright (c) 2010 The Daily Star