BEIRUT, 22 October 2005 — “Bye, bye Hariri,” says one prominent suspect in the murder of Lebanon’s former prime minister, according to a UN report, which catalogs graphic witness testimony and intercepted phone calls pointing to a carefully crafted assassination plot.
A witness quoted in the report described a conversation with the head of Lebanon’s presidential guard, Mustafa Hamdan, in October 2004, in which Hamdan spoke negatively of Rafik Hariri and ended by saying: “We are going to send him on a trip, bye, bye Hariri.”
Hamdan was arrested along with three Lebanese ex-security chiefs in August in connection with the probe. “May he rot in hell,” said one Lebanese official, named as “X,” according to a recorded call with the former head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, Rustom Ghazali on July 19, 2004.
“No, let him be the laughing stock and be pointed at the person who ruined and indebted the country,” responded Ghazali, who said he was frustrated because “whenever we need to speak to Hariri we have to suck up to him and he does not always answer.”
X: “What about another option. I send him a message saying: Resign, God damn it.”
Ghazali: “No, don’t send him a message or else he will say ‘they forced me to resign’. Let the street ... you know what I mean.”
Other witnesses recount a chilling sequence of events implicating top Syrian and Lebanese officials in the massive bomb blast on Feb. 14 that killed Hariri and 20 others on the Beirut seafront. One witness named Syrian President Bashar Assad’s brother Maher and his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, Syria’s military intelligence chief, as among those who “decided to assassinate Rafik Hariri.” The unnamed witness “of Syrian origin but a resident of Lebanon who claims to have worked for the Syrian intelligence services on Lebanon,” said top Lebanese and Syrian insiders began plotting in September and held a series of secret meetings in Syria.
“One of the high-ranked officers told the witness (in January 2005) that ... Hariri was a big problem to Syria. Approximately a month later that officer told the witness there would soon be an ‘earthquake’ that would rewrite the history of Lebanon,” the report said. The day before the bombing, the witness drove a Syrian security officer to the area in Beirut where the explosion occurred. He “subsequently understood (the visit)... to have been... a reconnaissance exercise.”
Tensions between Hariri and then power broker Syria had been heating up for months ahead of the blast, and came to a boiling point over Hariri’s opposition to a Syrian-engineered plan to extend Lebanese President Emile Lahoud’s mandate by three years.
The report said one suspect called Lahoud’s mobile just minutes before the blast, but this was denied by the president. A meeting between Hariri and Bashar on Aug. 26, 2004, six months before the 1,000 kilogram (2,200 pound) bomb exploded, “appeared to bring the conflict to a head,” the report said.
Ghazali, who said he met Hariri after his talk with Bashar, told the UN commission in a statement: “(Hariri) looked relaxed. (He) said his meeting with ... Assad was cordial and brief ... Assad told him ... we in Syria have always been dealing with you as a friend.”
However, Lebanese MP Marwan Hamadeh, who said he met with Hariri after the Bashar visit, gave a drastically different account of events.
“Hariri ... looked tired. He was sweating. He told ... us that President Lahoud was to be re-elected or ‘he will have to pay a high price.’ He reported ... Assad saying to him: ‘I will break Lebanon on your head and (opposition leader Walid) Jumblatt’s head.”
Hariri’s son, Saad, who was elected an MP this year, also gave testimony about that day. “I discussed with my father ... the extension of ... Lahoud’s term. He told me ... Assad threatened him, telling him: This is what I want... This extension is going to happen or else I will break Lebanon over your head and Walid Jumblatt’s... So, either you do as you are told or we will get you and your family wherever you are.”
The report also contains the transcript of a taped conversation between Rafik Hariri and Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Walid Moallem on Feb. 1, 2005, two weeks before Hariri died. “(Assad) did not ask my opinion,” Hariri said. “He said: ‘I have decided.’ He did not address me as prime minister or as Rafik or anything of that kind. He just said: ‘I have decided.’ I was totally flustered, at a loss. That was the worst day of my life.”
