Security Heads Arrested
3 Days have already passed since a major political event occurred in the country. On August 30st 2005, several former top security services chiefs and were arrested, suspected of being involved in P.M. Hariri assassination on the 14th of February 2005. The arrested officials, all close to President Emile Lahoud, served during the Syrian occupation period which ended a couple of month ago following international pressure mainly by the U.S.A.
The arrested officials, all pro-Syrians (what a coincidence), are:
- Major General Jamil Sayed: former head of internal security forces. He was believed by a lot of Lebanese people to be the man who ruled the country during the Syrian occupation.
- Brigadier General Ali El Hajj: former head chief of the police. He was appointed by the pro-Syrian regime.
- Raymond Azar: former chief of the Lebanese secret services and military intelligence.
- General Mustafa Hamdan: head (till today) of President Emile Lahoud presidential guard. He was refused a couple of weeks ago a visa to accompany President Lahoud on a trip to the U.S.A. to attend the U.N. general assembly.
- Nasser Qandil: former Member of Parliament. He was located in Syria when the raids by the Lebanese authorities were conducted. He came back to Lebanon and surrendered himself to the police after a long (very long, very very long… speech) at the Lebanese-Syrian borders.
The suspects were interrogated by Detlev Mehlis, chief of the U.N. investigation team, and are currently still in police custody. The authorities will decide whether they should be released or not in the coming days. Mehlis mentioned that more arrests are to come, some of which should occur in Damascus.
Concurrently, Lebanese divers, assisted by English divers, have been investigating the explosion place searching for body pieces, car parts and other objects that could help out with the investigation.
This incident is the first major advance in the investigation process and came as a relief by the Hariri family, the Lebanese people and more generally the international community. Let’s hope that this time the criminals will be caught and prosecuted; and the assassination will not be forgotten as it was the case for similar cases in Lebanon for several years.