March 18, 2010 - Daily Star - Sayyed calls lawsuit against Syrian officers 'shameful'

BEIRUT: Former General Security Chief Jamil al-Sayyed judged the lawsuit filed by a Lebanese man against Syrian officers as a shameful attempt to trade with the one he filed against Lebanese officials, according to Sayyed’s media office Wednesday. Former member of the Internal Security Forces (ISF) Elias Tanios filed an unprecedented lawsuit last week against four Syrian jailers and a Syrian man who allegedly denounced him, accusing them of kidnapping, torturing and jailing him in Syria in 1992. Nonetheless, word circulated that these claims were only made in order to balance out the complaint Sayyed filed at a Syrian court last December in which he accused high ranking Lebanese officials of depriving him of his freedom and hiring false witnessed in the assassination case of Former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.Sayyed accused Tanios of being an Israeli agent and said his attempt to create a balance was shameful. He also lashed out at the Lebanese Forces (LF) party whose chief of legal office Suleiman Labbous is Tanios ’ Lawyer. “It is a sign of moral and political bankruptcy that the LF legal office could only find a former Israeli agent to take legal action against Syrian officers in the aim of trading with the case of Sayyed,” the issued statement said. It then explained that Tanios was found guilty both in Lebanon and Syria for collaborating with Israel in 1991 and he was dismissed from the ISF for this cause. “It is even more dangerous that the ISF allowed Tanios to return to the service for one year after having paid his penal sentences,” it added. Sayyed also condemned in the statement the absence of any reaction to this “exchange” from any of the Lebanese officials concerned in the lawsuit he filed in Syria.