Hizbullah questions missing Syrian, detention of generals

Source: Daily Star, 17-04-2008
BEIRUT: Hizbullah on Wednesday questioned the disappearance of a Syrian witness in the 2005 assassination of former Primer Minister Rafik Hariri, indicating it was linked to the continued detention of four former security chiefs for alleged involvement in the crime.
The stand was outlined by Hizbullah's Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc after a meeting chaired by MP Mohammad Raad.
In a statement, the bloc said it tackled the "French comments about the disappearance of Mohammad Zuheir Siddiq ... and whether it is linked to extending the arbitrary detention of the four officers."
The bloc also "raised several questions about the seriousness of the international commitment to reveal the truth in the Hariri assassination."
A key witness in the UN probe into the assassination of Hariri, Siddiq went missing a month ago, officials in France said last week.
"All we know is that he left his home on March 13," said a Foreign Ministry spokesman.
The comment came a day after Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner announced that French authorities no longer knew the whereabouts of Siddiq, who had been living in the Paris suburb of Chatou.
French police sources said Siddiq had not been under police surveillance, was not under house arrest and was able to come and go as he pleased.
However, the Kuwait daily As-Siyassah said Siddiq supposedly called the paper's offices last week and said: "I'm still in Europe, in a safe place." The report quoted him as saying he feared for his life and that there have been three attempts to kill him.
Over the phone, Siddiq also reportedly accused the UN commission which is investigating the Hariri assassination of failing to protect him and his family, and threatened to bring legal action against the UN.
Siddiq was quoted as saying that he would remain in his secret location until the international tribunal starts prosecuting the Hariri case. There were no further details.
In other developments, Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun received a visit from the wives of the four detained former security chiefs.
Jamil al-Sayyed of General Security, Ali al-Hajj of the Internal Security Forces, Raymond Azar of army intelligence and Mustafa Hamdan of the Presidential Guard have been detained for more than two years.
The Lebanese government on Tuesday defended as "perfectly legal" its long-running detention of the high-ranking security officials in connection with the Hariri assassination.
The government statement came in response to criticism by the Geneva-based UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), which has called for the men's release, saying their detention without charge since August 2005 was "arbitrary" and "unjust."
The government said in a letter to the OHCHR that Investigating Magistrate Saqr Saqr's decision to hold the seven detainees in custody "was in line with articles 108 and 363 of the Lebanese penal code."
"Articles 108 and 363 are clear and stipulate that the period of reserve detention is unlimited if the case has been assigned to the Judicial Council and if the crime reflects on state security," it added.