The Lebanese Center for Human Rights (CLDH) is a local non-profit, non-partisan Lebanese human rights organization in Beirut that was established by the Franco-Lebanese Movement SOLIDA (Support for Lebanese Detained Arbitrarily) in 2006. SOLIDA has been active since 1996 in the struggle against arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance and the impunity of those perpetrating gross human violations.

Search This Blog

July 24, 2012

The Daily Star - Hussam fugitive from Lebanese justice, July 25 2012


BEIRUT: Although the Special Tribunal for Lebanon has said that it has no authority to press charges against the so-called false witnesses in the investigation of the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, recently captured Hussam Hussam is wanted by Lebanon’s judiciary in two criminal cases.
A judicial source told The Daily Star Tuesday that Beirut’s investigative judge issued an arrest warrant for Hussam in 2008 for allegedly making threats against journalist Fares Khashan, and the Syrian national is also wanted on charges of fraud issued by the investigative judge in the south.
A Syrian rebel group announced in a video posted on YouTube Sunday that it had captured Hussam, who gave testimony to the STL’s predecessor, the U.N. International Independent Investigation Commission, alleging that Syrian and Lebanese security chiefs were involved in the bombing that claimed the lives of Hariri and 22 others.
Asked whether he had any information about the assassination of Hariri, Hussam said in the video: “Just let me reach Beirut and I will reveal surprises that you have never dreamed of.”
The rebel speaking in the video also promised to send Hussam to former Prime Minister Saad Hariri as a “gift.”
But former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who heads Hariri’s Future parliamentary bloc, said that the Future Movement has nothing to do with the matter.
“This is a judicial matter in which the international tribunal has a say,” the Sidon MP told The Daily Star. Siniora said the movement would not be contacting Hussam at all.
Hussam, 36, gave testimony in 2005 to the UNIIIC, which was probing the assassination of the former statesman. A few months later, Hussam held a news conference in Damascus, recanting his testimony and lashing out at Saad Hariri and the March 14 coalition.
During the UNIIIC’s investigation, four Lebanese generals were held almost four years in connection with the Hariri case before the STL ordered they be freed.
An STL spokesperson could not be reached by The Daily Star Tuesday for comment on Hussam’s capture, but last year, its Appeals Chamber ruled that the U.N.-backed court has no jurisdiction to look into the case of false witnesses.
“The individuals who were interviewed during the mandate of the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission [UNIIIC] are not witnesses before the tribunal, as their evidence has not been presented to the Trial Chamber,” it said.
The STL said that “no provision in our statute allows the tribunal to assert jurisdiction over criminal offenses which might have taken place before the creation of the tribunal, other than those listed in Article 1 of the Statute,” added the decision.
Article 1 specifies that the STL has jurisdiction over the attack that killed Hariri, as well as connected attacks in 2004 and 2005. STL President David Baragwanath has said the court could broach the issue, but only if Lebanon and the U.N. Security Council first extend its mandate.
The family of former head of the Lebanese Communist Party George Hawi, who was killed in a bomb blast in June 2005, filed a lawsuit against Hussam after photos were released of him at the crime scene shortly after the attack.
The STL is investigating Hawi’s case in addition to other connected cases under its jurisdiction.
Another case that could involve Hussam is the attempted assassination of journalist May Chidiac. The March 14 journalist who survived the attempt on her life in September 2005, says that Hussam came to the hospital where she was transferred shortly after the attack to see whether she passed away.
The Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition has labeled Hussam, along with Mohammad Zuheir al-Siddiq and others, “false witnesses” who mislead the international investigation into Hariri’s assassination.


http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2012/Jul-25/181879-hussam-fugitive-from-lebanese-justice.ashx#axzz21WxW3tDz

No comments:

Post a Comment

Archives