BEIRUT, 1 January 2006 — Syrian lawmakers demanded yesterday that former Vice President Abdel-Halim Khaddam be tried for treason and corruption after he denounced President Bashar Assad on Friday. Khaddam also accused Bashar of threatening Rafik Hariri months before the murder of the former Lebanese prime minister.
Despite no official comment from the government in Damascus over Khaddam’s remarks during an interview in Paris with Al-Arabiya network, several MPs had harsh words for the former vice president during a special parliamentary session yesterday. Some of the lawmakers accused Khaddam of stealing public funds.
“I ask the Syrian leadership to try him for humiliating 10 million Syrians when he said half of the Syrian people are eating from the garbage,” MP Umeima Faddoul said during the session.
Legislator after legislator stood up in Parliament to accuse Khaddam of corruption and treason during four decades as a senior official in Syria. Some also accused him of betraying his country by moving to France.
Khaddam, a veteran aide to Bashar’s father, late President Hafez Assad, had launched an unprecedented verbal attack, marking the first time a former Syrian official has admitted details of an alleged hostile meeting between Bashar and Hariri.
“I had warned Hariri several times to leave Beirut because he had fallen out of favor in Damascus, but it never occurred to me that Syria would assassinate him,” Khaddam said. “Hariri was directly threatened on different occasions.”
In the interview, Khaddam described a meeting between Bashar and Hariri where the Syrian president vowed to the former Lebanese premier that he would crush “anyone who stands against our will in Lebanon.” Observers said Khaddam would most likely become the star witness in an ongoing UN probe into Hariri’s murder.
Asked in the Al-Arabiya interview whether he thought the Syrian security apparatus could have murdered Hariri without the knowledge of Bashar, Khaddam said that was “not possible in Syria.”
No official reaction to Khaddam’s interview emerged in Beirut yesterday, but major anti-Syrian politicians welcomed the interview.
Beirut MP Ahmad Fatfat, part of Saad Hariri’s Future Movement, described Khaddam’s attitude as “extremely positive.”
“His interview asserted everything the Lebanese (anti-Syrian) leaders have been saying,” Fatfat said, and added that following Khaddam’s interview, the Syrian government would have to review its position.
“He (Khaddam) left the Syrians a chance to limit the accusations to a number of security leaders, and if the Syrians take advantage of this chance they will be able to save the situation,” Fatfat added.
MP Wael Abu Faor said Khaddam’s statement was a testimony against the Syrian government. “Khaddam is part of the inner circle that knows what is going on in Syria, even if he had not been part of the decision-making process recently,” Abu Faor said. “The Syrian government cannot deny the testimony of Khaddam.”
