Hezbollah-Hariri ties were relaxed, Sabaa tells STL

BEIRUT: While Rafik Hariri was combatting an aggressive media campaign leveled against him by the Syrian security apparatus in Lebanon in the days before his assassination, his relationship with Hezbollah was not strained, according to his political ally Bassem Sabaa.

As pro-Syrian elements mounted a sustained media campaign to suggest that Hariri was a corrupt confessionalist in the winter of 2005, the former prime minister was eager to stand his political ground, Sabaa testified Tuesday.

Hariri carefully coordinated a series of photo ops at meetings with his allies to that effect in the days before he was killed on Feb. 14 2005, Sabaa said.

On Feb. 10, Hariri met with Maronite Archbishop Boulos Matar in what Sabaa said amounted to an act of defiance against Syrian orders.

“The Syrian leadership at the time wanted a complete severance of communications between the Maronite patriarchy and the prime minister,” Sabaa testified. Hariri, however, met Matar and other high-ranking Maronites with the cameras rolling.

On the evening of Feb. 13, less than 24 hours before he would be killed in a massive bomb blast, Hariri met with Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt at Qoreitem palace.

“The objective of the meeting was this photo opportunity,” Sabaa testified. “Walid Jumblatt came to tell everyone that he was acting in solidarity with Rafik Hariri. He came to proclaim to everybody that he was an ally to Rafik Hariri in the path they both had chosen,” he told the court.

Finally, literally minutes before Hariri was killed, he posed for a photograph with Sabaa himself. “As soon as the cameramen arrive, we’re going to flash them a wide smile,’” Sabaa recalled Hariri telling him that afternoon. “‘Let them see us like this; we are comfortable and we are at ease,’” Hariri told him. “He wanted to face and confront the campaign that was being launched against him through a smile that was addressed to all the parties,” Sabaa added.

Jamil al-Sayyed, the pro-Syrian director of Lebanon’s General Security back then, was the architect of the media campaign against Hariri, according to Sabaa.

While Hezbollah was closely allied to the Syrian security apparatus operating in Lebanon at the time, the party was not involved in publically smearing, explained Sabaa.

“Hezbollah was not at the forefront of the political confrontation with ... Rafik Hariri,” Sabaa told the court.

Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah and Rafik Hariri had been engaging in constructive dialogue sessions when the latter was killed, several witnesses have testified. Hariri even “thought about having an electoral alliance with Hezbollah in Beirut” in the 2005 parliamentary election.

While five Hezbollah members have been charged with plotting the bombing that killed Hariri and 21 others in 2005, the prosecution has recently called a series of witnesses who have stressed the fraught relationship between Hariri and the Syrian regime in the months leading up to his assassination.

It appears that the defense is poised to capitalize on the prosecution’s change of tact. STL’s defense counsel has insinuated that jihadis may have been responsible for Hariri’s assassination. Apparently following that premise, defense attorney Guenael Mettraux asked Sabaa if Hariri was ever called a “kaffir” [infidel] for working with Western officials.

Mettraux is expected to cross-examine Sabaa for the rest of the week. He explained to the court that Sabaa is “one of the few witnesses who might be conducive to eliciting evidence that is useful” to the defense.