Ali Al-Hajj breaks silence: they do not want truth!

Source: Al-Manar, 02-05-2008
Ali Al-Hajj, one of the politically detained officers over the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri case, broke his silence during the first interview of its kind since his detention three years ago.
In a special interview with the Lebanese weekly Al-Intiqad published on Friday, Al-Hajj, the former director General of the Internal Security Forces, said all procedures taken by the Lebanese security services when he was in office and all the conclusions reached when the crime occurred have been proved to be in harmony with the investigation results of the International Independent Investigation Committee probing the murder.
"The investigations carried out by the security apparatus contradicted the political project of a Lebanese group at the time," he said. Al-Hajj added that this group does not want the investigation to be based on according to the real data that was announced back then. He stressed this would have embarrassed this bloc before its supporters at a time they should be directed against the Lebanese-Syrian security apparatus."But when they found themselves cornered by data provided by foreign experts, which the former head of the commission Detlev Mehles couldn't change, they started gathering false witnesses."
Al-Hajj revealed that when the international investigator showed him a film about the witness Mohamad Zuhair Siddiq, he attempted to stand up and end the session, "but the investigator insisted I watch the film till the end. So, I told him that if the investigation is going in this direction, that means you don't really want the truth."
The detained officer pointed out that the former Belgian head of the International Independent Investigation Commission (IIIC), Serge Brammertz, had completely ignored false witnesses. "I asked him at the end of my interrogation why he didn't ask me about Siddiq who was the main reason behind my arrest. He simply told me that he has nothing to do with this witness, and the same goes to the false witness Akram Mrad."
Al-Hajj also stressed that if investigations were going in the right direction with actual evidence, then there wouldn't be a need to all these false witnesses. "The people who invented, fabricated, trained and took care of the false witnesses were known by names and goals," he underlined, adding that the intended purpose of the four officers' detention was not them in person but a whole political Lebanese group."
The head of the Democratic Gathering MP Walid Jumblatt's constant assaults on the officers' families were also tackled during the interview. Al-Hajj recalled that Jumblatt, prior to Hariri's assassination, had problems with the officers. According to Al-Hajj, Jumblatt had held the officers responsible for his fiasco in the last municipal elections in Eklim Al-Kharoub in the Chouf area. "Jumblatt believes that high posts in Eklim Al-Kharoub should pass by him, which didn't happen when I was appointed police Chief and when Brigadier General Mostafa Hamdan was appointed as presidential guard chief. This is what prompted him to say before I was detained that he wouldn't relax unless Ali Al-Hajj is jailed."
On his situation in prison, Hajj pointed out that he was living in a cage and in complete isolation. "The window is very high and rectangular to the degree that I can't see anything from it," he said.