The Daily Star - Lebanon prosecution rejects Samaha's request to nullify testimony, August 30 2012

By Youssef Diab

BEIRUT: The military prosecutor’s office has rejected the defense’s requests that former Information Minister Michel Samaha be allowed to retract his testimony and summon a key witness.

Judicial sources told The Daily Star Thursday that the military prosecutor’s office and Military Judge Riad Abu Ghida have both struck down the motion by Samaha’s defense team.

They ruled that Samaha’s confessions are supported by incriminating evidence and that summoning undercover agent Milad Kfouri – the key witness in the case – from abroad would endanger his life.

The sources said that if Samaha’s attorneys Malek Sayyed and Youssef Finyanous insist on their motion, Abu Ghida would have to close the probe and issue an indictment against Samaha, who would then be required to appear in the military court for an arraignment hearing.

Kfouri provided incriminating video footage in the Samaha case. He was flown out of Lebanon sometime before the Aug. 10 police raid on Samaha’s residences in Beirut’s Ashrafieh and Metn’s Khanshara-Jwar, over fears for his safety.

Samaha, who is close to Syrian President Bashar Assad, was arrested Aug. 10 on charges of plotting terror attacks in Lebanon along with Syria’s National Security chief Brig. Gen. Ali Mamlouk and another senior general identified only by the first name of Adnan.

Samaha has confessed to plotting bomb attacks with Mamlouk and Adnan at the behest of Assad, according to alleged interrogation transcripts leaked to and published by a local newspaper Monday.

According to the leaked interrogation transcripts, Samaha tells Kfouri that the only four people who know of the plot are Assad, Mamlouk, Kfouri and Samaha himself.

Samaha sought to use Kfouri to execute the plot, but Kfouri set him up by informing the ISF’s Information Branch after holding a meeting with the former minister to identify the targets and plan the killings and identify the targets. Kfouri was then given recording devices to record subsequent meetings with Samaha, in which targets of the planned attacks were discussed again.

On Thursday, Military Prosecutor Saqr Saqr ordered Samaha relocated from the military court in Beirut several kilometers northeast to the headquarters of military police in Reihanieh, Baabda, for security reasons related to his own safety.

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