Hariri felt targeted by pro-Syrian security services: Khoury to STL

BEIRUT: In the months before his assassination, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri told allies he felt that the pro-Syrian Lebanese security services “were targeting him,” according former MP Ghattas Khoury. In his second day of testimony at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon Friday, Khoury described how Hariri’s security detail was noticeably reduced after he resigned from his post in October 2004, a measure he interpreted as a “message” from the “Syrian Lebanese security apparatus” that held sway in the country.

Khoury went on to describe the “atmosphere of [Syrian] heavy-handedness” that prevailed in Lebanon from the end of 2004 to Hariri’s assassination on February 14, 2005.

“The Lebanese were divided into traitors and patriots,” with politicians suspected of anti-Syrian sentiment thrown into prison on specious charges, Khoury said.

“The authorities were behaving in a way that had become totally unbearable,” he added.

Khoury’s testimony is part of the “political evidence” being presented before the U.N.-backed tribunal tasked with prosecuting those responsible for killing Hariri and 21 others in a massive bombing.

Toward the end of 2004, various politicians opposed to Syria’s hegemony in Lebanon began to meet at the Bristol hotel, Khoury recalled, to call for “an independent government” free from Syrian influence.

Hariri did not attend the meetings himself, Khoury said, in order to preserve “a wider margin to maneuver.”

The former prime minister gave his tacit support to the movement, however, by sending his close aide, former Economy Minister Bassel Fleihan, among other political allies.

In early February 2005, just two weeks before Hariri’s assassination, the so-called Bristol group called for the total withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, Khoury said.

In his testimony Friday, Khoury emphasized that while Hariri wanted a strong, independent government in Lebanon, he was not prepared to dissolve the country’s powerful militias if it would result in renewed bloodshed.

In particular, Hariri was concerned that stripping Hezbollah of its weapons could inflame lingering tensions from the Civil War.

“Civil peace in Lebanon was the priority of Rafik Hariri,” Khoury said, adding that Hariri balked when the U.N. adopted Resolution 1559, which called for all militias in Lebanon to disarm.

“He didn’t want to implement it [Resolution 1559] ... with regards to the domestic issue in relation to the resistance.”

The STL prosecution has accused five Hezbollah supporters of conspiring to kill Hariri.

Khoury also said he had been mistaken in his testimony Thursday that voting for the extension of President Emile Lahoud’s term in 2004 had been improperly conducted.

Separately, former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora announced that, due to health reasons, he would postpone his testimony at the tribunal, which was originally scheduled for next week.

The prosecution council quashed rumors that Siniora was refusing to testify.

“I know that [former] Prime Minister Siniora is firmly committed to assisting the tribunal and he intends to appear to offer his testimony at the first available opportunity when his health returns and when it is convenient for the Tribunal,” said Graham Cameron, the prosecution’s senior trial counsel.