LEBANON: LAWYER FOR JAILED GENERAL JAMIL AS-SAYED

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIRUT 000207 SIPDIS SIPDIS NSC FOR ABRAMS/DORAN/MARCHESE/HARDING E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/06/2017 TAGS: PGOV KCRM PTER SHUM LE SY SUBJECT: LEBANON: LAWYER FOR JAILED GENERAL JAMIL AS-SAYED MAKES HIS CASE FOR RELEASE Classified By: Jeffrey Feltman, Ambassador. Reason: Sections 1.4 (b) and (d). SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (C) Akram Azoury, attorney for the jailed former head of Lebanon's Surete Generale, Jamil as-Sayed, met with DCM February 5 to present the case for as-Sayed's release from prison. Azoury, a respected human rights lawyer, said that the only basis for the Lebanese government's incarceration of as-Sayed had been testimony given to the UNIIIC by the Syrian national Zouhair Saddik, who has since been discredited as a witness. Azoury reports that Prosecutor General Said Mirza so much as admitted to UNIIIC Commissioner Serge Brammertz that as-Sayed remains in jail for political rather than criminal reasons. Azoury believes that Mirza and Investigative Judge Elias Eid will not release as-Sayed unless they receive a political green light to do so, with Sa'ad Hariri and Walid Jumblatt controlling this political decision. Azoury cited Brammertz's December 12 report as signalling that Brammertz no longer felt there was reason to keep as-Sayed in jail. Azoury also argued that as-Sayed's release from prison would enhance the political credibility of the UNIIIC and Special Tribunal. Finally, Azoury supplied us with four recommendations for changes in the statute that would govern the Special Tribunal. None are of great substance, and unsurprisingly, all would run to the benefit of Azoury's client, as-Sayed. End Summary. ¶2. (C) This past week, Akram Azoury, attorney for jailed former Surete General Director General Jamil as-Sayed, sent two documents to the Ambassador, over a cover letter in as-Sayed's name. Both texts were addressed to Lebanese Prosecutor General Said Mirza and Investigative Judge Elias Eid, and submitted by Azoury in as-Sayed's name. The first document, dated December 14, 2006, asks for withdrawal of the arrest warrant against Jamil as-Sayed, based on the content of UNIIIC Commissioner Serge Brammertz's December 12 report to the UN Secretary General. The second document, dated January 9, 2007, criticizes the non-responsiveness of the Lebanese judicial system to as-Sayed's previous entreaties for release. It also argues in more detail that his continued incarceration is politically motivated. AS-SAYED'S EXONERATION -------------- ¶3. (C) On February 5, DCM hosted for lunch Akram Azoury, who was accompanied by Jamil as-Sayed's son Malek, also a lawyer. Azoury has kept in contact with DCM and other Perm-5 Embassy officials in Beirut since the outset of as-Sayed's incarceration. He said that Commissioner Brammertz's latest report, issued December 12, 2006, confirms that Brammertz no longer believes that there is an evidentiary basis for keeping as-Sayed in jail. Accordingly, Investigative Judge Eid should release him immediately. ¶4. (C) Azoury said that the sole basis for jailing as-Sayed in late August, 2005 had been testimony that former UNIIIC Commissioner Detlev Mehlis drew from a Syrian witness, Zouhair Saddik. Since then, Saddik's testimony has been discredited by contradictions and inconsistencies with known facts. His unreliable character was demonstrated when he absconded to France. Azoury said that Brammertz told Judges Mirza and Eid of Saddik's lies and contradictions in a meeting that took place in Mirza's office on December 8, four days before Brammertz released his report. This is the reason, Azoury continued, why Brammertz signalled in his report that Jamil as-Sayed should be released. The relevant language came in para 96 of Brammertz's December 12 report. This text reads in pertinent part: "The Commission regularly shares with the appropriate Lebanese authorities the substance of all relevant information that it obtains . . . this includes an analytical report on the credibility of a witness, recently transmitted to the Prosecutor General and the Investigative Judge assigned to the Hariri case. This process is of particular importance where the information is relevant to individuals who are detained. . ." ¶5. (C) DCM responded that para 10 of Brammertz's December report noted that the UN Commission and the Prosecutor General's office might refrain from placing certain information in the public domain. Was this caveat relevant here and thus could there be other information against as-Sayed, beyond the Saddiq testimony? Azoury admitted the point about para 10, but said it was not a factor in the BEIRUT 00000207 002 OF 003 case. Former UNIIIC Commissioner Mehlis had recommended the jailing of as-Sayed solely on the basis of the Saddik testimony. No further incriminating information has been found. In sum, Azoury said, even Commissioner Brammertz has now declared that Jamil as-Sayed should no longer be in jail. s for as-Sayed's plans if he were released, Azoury said as-Sayed would stay in Lebanon and comply with any other terms imposed upon him. ¶6. (C) Azoury said that it will take a political "green light" for Mirza and Eid to release as-Sayed. Judges in Lebanon, he commented, still retain the mentality, left over from the Syrian occupation, that they cannot take major judicial decisions without clear approval from those who wield political power. Azoury said that in as-Sayed's case, the political decision-makers will be Future Movement leader Saad Hariri and Druse leader Walid Jumblatt. Azoury observed that as-Sayed has the highest political profile of the four generals jailed since August 2005, but he had the least to do with the assassination of Hariri or the subsequent investigation. By contrast, jailed General Mustafa Hamdan, former head of the Presidential Guard, has the lowest political profile, but was the most involved in the assassination, especially in compromising the crime site in the hours and days after the Hariri bombing. Azoury said that the other two jailed generals, former head of the Internal Security Forces Ali al-Hajj and former head of Lebanese Armed Forces intelligence (G-2) Raymond Azar, fall in between as-Sayed and Hamdan, both in their political profiles and in their closeness to the assassination. Azoury said that he has had no contact with the attorneys for the other generals. He also commented that as-Sayed dislikes Hamdan personally. FLAWED JUSTICE; FOLLOWED UP -------------- ¶7. (C) Azoury reported that he visited UNIIIC Commissioner Brammertz about six times between June and December of 2006. In each instance, Azoury's mesage has been that there is no substantial evidence against as-Sayed, that Judges Mirza and Eid have been unresponsive to well-grounded legal pleadings, and that Mirza and Eid are operating on political rather than juridical motives. Azoury's memo of January 9, 2007 is far more pointed than any of his previous memoranda, alleging a series of statements by Mirza and Eid that contravene basic principles of justice. This memo also recounts a threatening effort by former Commissioner Mehlis and his assistant Gerhard Lehmann to induce as-Sayed to finger a culprit, any culprit, in the Hariri assassination in return for exonerating as-Sayed himself. Azoury had previously recounted this story to us only orally. This time he put it in writing. He also said that he has sent his memos of December 14 and January 9 to members of Lebanon's governing March 14 political coalition. Finally, he added that he is suing Mehlis and Lehmann in Lebanese and German courts for false accusations and defamation of character. ¶8. (C) As for political efforts to release as-Sayed, Azoury said that he raised the issue with his "old friend," Prime Minister Fouad Siniora. Siniora sent him to see Justice Minister Charles Rizk. Now, Rizk is reflecting upon the case, but mainly with a view toward his own presidential ambitions. Azoury mentioned that a prominent French human rights lawyer with the organization "Solida" may soon come to Beirut to look into the case. ¶9. (C) Azoury argued that releasing Jamil as-Sayed would enhance the credibility of the Special Tribunal process that has now engulfed Lebanon's internal political scene. (Azoury noted here that Jamil as-Sayed himself favors early establishment of the Tribunal.) As-Sayed's release, with some official acknowledgement that there is no credible evidence against him, would bolster confidence in the the Special Tribunal by showing that the UN-sponsored process can act fairly toward those who are accused, and render justice without regard to political imperatives. THE SPECIAL TRIBUNAL -------------- ¶10. (C) Quite understandably, Azoury had some ideas on the Special Tribunal to try suspects in the Hariri assassination and related crimes, as authorized in UNSC Resolution 1664. He said there is a distinction between the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and other international tribunals. The Lebanese Tribunal is set up to try only a single case (and perhaps BEIRUT 00000207 003 OF 003 other related cases),rather than broad-reaching charges of genocide. The impact of this is that the Lebanon Tribunal will be adjudicating a classic criminal case, rather than seeking a political judgment of guilt for say, 100,000 deaths that have not been examined individually -- as had been the case with the Carla del Ponte prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic. ¶11. (C) Azoury, after recounting the Tribunal's political difficulties in Lebanon, said a solution would be the following: members of the Security Council should ask the new UN Secretary General to write a letter to the Lebanese, in which the SYG says that the "go sign" for the Tribunal will not be given until the Commission has finished its work of identifying the suspects in the assassination. (Comment: On February 7, we ran this idea by Judge Ralph Riachy, one of the GOL's two judges who have been negotiating the Tribunal with the UN. Riachy was entirely dismissive, saying that it is not the role of the UNIIIC to come up with such a definitive statement on who is guilty, or at least almost certainly guilty. End Comment.) ¶12. (C) Azoury also provided us with a paper on modifications to the proposed Statute for the Special Tribunal. He makes four suggestions: -- There should be a mechanism to allow for the dismissal of judges, and for judges to recuse themselves. -- There should be a mechanism to allow for releasing suspects who are jailed provisionally. -- Legal recourses of the defendants (e.g., apppeals) should be provided for, independent of the Tribunal itself, since the Tribunal will pass out of existence at some future time. -- There should be a mechanism to hold the Tribunal's judges responsible for serious or intentional mistakes. We will find it interesting to see if the internal Lebanese political debate on the Tribunal picks up any of these proposals, all of which run to the favor of defendants. COMMENT -------------- ¶13. (C) As we have reported before, this is an extremely awkward issue. While hinting obliquely that he suspects as-Sayed's involvement in the Hariri assassination, UNIIIC Commissioner Brammertz has told us that he has no solid evidence that would meet international standards in justifying the ongoing detention of as-Sayed and the three other generals. Brammertz has noted his discomfort with the human rights and legal aspects of these detentions. But even Brammertz recognizes that releasing as-Sayed would be interpreted as an enormous victory for Syria and its Lebanese proxies. Were as-Sayed freed, March 14 leaders would be demoralized, believing (perhaps rightly) that the investigation is much further from the truth than hoped. ¶14. (C) Knowing of Brammertz' concerns, we have long urged the GOL to investigate how as-Sayed, a public servant, obtained the USD 20 million in his local bank accounts, in hopes that the GOL would be able to press other charges to keep him in jail. The GOL has failed to follow up, perhaps out of fear of what would be discovered regarding the origin of those funds. Given as-Sayed's power and connections to the Syrian occupying authorities for many years, surely the Lebanese could have found something on which to base his ongoing detention. In any case, given Prosecutor General Mirza's general timidness and his close connections to the Hariri family, we do not expect Mirza to release as-Sayed soon. FELTMAN