DAMASCUS, 29 November 2005 — A man has appeared on Syrian state television saying Lebanese officials, including the son of Rafiq Al-Hariri, had forced him to testify falsely to a UN inquiry into the former Lebanese prime minister’s assassination.
Hosam Taher Hosam, a Syrian who said he had worked with Syrian and Lebanese intelligence during Syria’s military presence in Lebanon, said in a program aired on Sunday that an elaborate scheme of torture, threats and bribery had forced him to testify to chief UN investigator Detlev Mehlis.
His appearance came after Damascus agreed to allow five Syrian officials to be questioned by Mehlis at UN offices in Vienna in connection with Hariri’s Feb. 14 assassination.
Hariri and other officials accused by Hosam could not immediately be reached for comment.
Hosam, who said he belonged to Syria’s Kurdish minority, said followers of Hariri and other anti-Syrian officials had detained him for a while in Lebanon and had wanted him to go to Vienna to confront the Syrians to be questioned by Mehlis.
“It is all a ploy,” Hosam said. “They were after Syria.” He said Hariri had told him he was convinced Syria was behind the truck bomb that killed his father, but needed Hosam’s testimony to prove it.
Hosam also accused Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh of arranging for other witnesses to testify falsely to Mehlis.
Hosam said he had been tortured, injected with drugs and offered $1.3 million by Lebanese Interior Minister Hassan Al-Sabaa to tell the probers he had seen the truck used in Hariri’s killing in a Syrian-controlled military facility.
