Rafik Hariri was planning a peaceful coup, STL hears

BEIRUT: Former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was planning a “peaceful coup” against Syrian influence in Lebanon prior to his assassination, his economic adviser and political ally MP Ghazi Youssef told the Special Tribunal for Lebanon Tuesday.

Following his resignation as prime minister in October 2004, Hariri began to mobilize a massive electoral campaign which he hoped would give him and his allies a parliamentary majority after elections in spring 2005.

“He was convinced that he would achieve a major victory, that he would be able to impose a government on President Lahoud himself.

“He felt that he would have a parliamentary majority from all sections, all factions, all confessions, that would express the will of the Lebanese people ... [to achieve] relative liberalization from the Syrian stronghold,” Youssef said.

“He wanted to achieve a great victory, to have a peaceful coup and return to government,” he added.

Peaceful or not, the Syrian authorities considered Hariri’s plan to be an attempted coup, Youssef told the court.

In the winter of 2004, Hariri, Youssef and former Culture Minister Ghassan Salame, who was at the time an adviser to the then Untied Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, were in Paris discussing an attempted assassination of MP Marwan Hamade.

Salame, who Youssef described as having “ a lot of contacts,” warned that if Hariri were to return to Beirut, the Syrians would seek to either end his political career or worse.

“If you are going back to Lebanon to resist [Syrian political pressure] ... they will kill you,’” Youssef recalled Salame telling Hariri.

Hariri, however, would not be swayed. “Mr Hariri said, ‘That’s impossible ... I’m going back to Beirut and I will not compromise,’” Youssef testified.

Salame, Youssef recalled, pled with Hariri to be careful and to assume the threat against him was credible. “He was more careful, but not enough,” Youssef lamented.

Youssef’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. Through the testimony of a number of Hariri’s political allies and confidantes, the prosecution has sought to highlight the increasingly strained relations between the former prime minister and the pro-Syrian security apparatus in Lebanon in the months leading up to his assassination.

The court is expected to hear Wednesday a taped recording of a meeting between Charles Ayoub, the editor of the Ad-Diyar newspaper, Rustom Ghazzali, a leading Syrian intelligence official in Lebanon, and Hariri.

Also Tuesday, Walid Jumblatt announced that he would testify before the Special Tribunal in June of this year.

He insisted that he would “avoid a protracted testimony.”

Separately, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon released its sixth annual report.

While highlighting the achievements made by the tribunal over the past year, it noted that “contempt cases remain a challenge.” Contempt cases filed by the court against two Lebanese journalists and their parent companies have drawn sharp criticism from a number of Lebanese politicians and activists. The report touched on the tension.

“On the one hand, the Tribunal must maintain the restraint that is required of a judicial institution, while on the other it faces a sustained media campaign from some quarters against the charges and the court itself,” the report noted.

A third alleged case of contempt “remains under investigation” the report noted.