DAMASCUS (Reuters) - A man has appeared on Syrian state television saying Lebanese officials, including the son of Rafik al-Hariri, had forced him to testify falsely to a U.N. inquiry into the former Lebanese prime minister's assassination. | And Syrian State Television wouldn't lie... |
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 programme aired on Sunday that an elaborate scheme of torture, threats and bribery had forced him to testify to chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis. | Not that torture, threats and bribery had anything to do with his current statement |
His appearance came after Damascus agreed to allow five Syrian officials to be questioned by Mehlis at U.N. offices in Vienna in connection with Hariri's February 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. Syria kept a tight grip on its small neighbor Lebanon for nearly three decades until a Lebanese and international outcry over Hariri's death forced it to withdraw its troops in April.
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 his captors had wanted him to implicate Maher al-Assad, a brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and his brother-in-law, Major General Asef Shawkat, the head of military intelligence.
Hosam said he had been tortured, injected with drugs and offered $1.3 million by Lebanese Interior Minister Hassan al-Sabaa to tell the investigators he had seen the truck used in Hariri's killing in a Syrian-controlled military facility. Hosam said he believed Mehlis was unaware of the alleged scheme. "I felt he had no relation to anything or knew anything," he said.
Mehlis has interviewed more than 500 people in connection with Hariri's killing, diplomatic sources say. His interim report in October did not name Hosam. | I expect to see a whole series of witness "recanting" their previous statements |
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