BEIRUT: A bodyguard who worked for former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and survived the blast that killed him said Tuesday the premier’s top security officer had warned them of an unspecified threat posed by Hezbollah before the assassination. The bodyguard, who testified before the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, also described the aftermath of stormy meetings between Hariri and Syrian President Bashar Assad as well as a meeting with the head of military intelligence, Rustom Ghazaleh, who allegedly threatened that he would break Hariri’s arm.
The officer, who was in the second vehicle in Hariri’s motorcade on the day of the explosion, also described the mental and nervous disorders that have plagued him since the day of the bombing.
“During the meetings, he would warn us a lot about ... Hezbollah,” said the bodyguard, whose identity and voice were obscured to protect his confidentiality after he received telephone threats, referring to Yahya al-Arab, Hariri’s top security official who was killed in the bombing. “I don’t know what the story was; he said that Hariri is annoyed with Hezbollah, Hariri has reconciled with Hezbollah, but you have to pay attention and watch out.”
The STL is tasked with prosecuting those responsible for the Valentine’s Day bombing in 2005 that killed Hariri and 21 others, the fallout from which ended the Syrian tutelage over Lebanon and plunged the country into years of political turmoil. The U.N.-backed court indicted five members of Hezbollah in connection with the attack, and their trial in absentia is being held in The Hague.
Opponents of the court have long pointed to Hariri’s cordial relations with Hezbollah, and in particular its Secretary-General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah, in the runup to his assassination. Hariri’s Future Movement and Hezbollah entered the 2005 parliamentary elections in some districts on joint lists.
But the testimony casts fresh doubt over the relationship between Hariri and Hezbollah.
The bodyguard, who began working with Hariri’s security detail in 2000, described in detail Hariri’s close protection measures, which usually consisted of three vehicles in addition to the premier’s, and an ambulance, often supplemented by ISF officers on motorbikes or other cars. They would also sometimes make use of decoy vehicles.
As premier, Hariri sometimes had as many as 50 ISF officers in his protection detail, the witness said.
On the day of the assassination, Hariri’s motorcade consisted of a Toyota Landcruiser manned by ISF personnel in the lead, followed by a Mercedes S-300 which included the witness, then Hariri’s car, which he was driving himself alongside MP Bassil Fleihan. Behind Hariri were two other Mercedes vehicles, one of which was an ambulance.
The witness described how the close protection officers tested the signal jammers meant to block remotely controlled explosives as they left Parliament 10 minutes before the explosion – their phones and the radio did not work when they turned the jammers on.
He said the officers never turned off the jammers unless instructed to by Hariri, who would turn on his hazard lights to make a phone call, though he often only did that outside Beirut on highways, and did not do so on the day of the bombing.
“The jammers were on and they were operational,” the witness said.
He added that he was tasked with waving away any traffic that cuts into the path of the convoy. He remembered waving off a motorbike and a car moments before the bomb went off – and then nothing.
“I stopped remembering anything related to that area 50 meters before the explosion,” he said, though he added that he remembered vague sounds and voices at the scene and hospital as he was recovered from the area.
But the most intriguing details were those offered by the witness on Hariri’s meetings with top Syrian officials, including his last meeting with President Bashar Assad in Damascus and a meeting of Yahya al-Arab, Hariri’s top security officer, with Rustom Ghazaleh, the chief of Syria’s military intelligence apparatus in Lebanon at the time.
After the meeting with Assad in the fall of 2004, the bodyguard said they met a distraught Hariri after an unusually short encounter with the Syrian president.
“He was tired, upset and his face was all red and flushed,” said the officer, adding that they escorted Hariri to his residence in Faqra where he stayed to recover for a week.
The officer said that he heard from Talal Nasser, Hariri’s chief bodyguard, that the meeting with Assad, intended to discuss the extension of President Emile Lahoud’s term which Hariri opposed, went “very badly.”
“He said that Mr. Hariri was very upset ... and God help the country,” the officer said. “Talal Nasser died with Mr. Hariri.”
The witness also described the meeting between Hariri’s top security officer, Arab, and Ghazaleh, the Syrian chief of military intelligence in Lebanon. After the meeting, Arab told Nasser that Ghazaleh threatened that if Hariri did not agree to Lahoud’s extension, he would “break his arm.”
The witness said Hariri’s security detail made changes in the aftermath of Ghazaleh’s threats, including using more decoy convoys when Hariri traveled through Beirut.
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