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Oqab Saqr Hits Back at Sayyed: He Tried to Blackmail Hariri for $15 Million
[An Nahar] MP Oqab Saqr hit back at former head of the General Security Department Maj. Gen. Jamil Sayyed, accusing him of trying to blackmail Prime Minister Saad Hariri over cash-for dropping case.He said Sayyed dispatched a "person" to Hariri asking for $15 million in return for giving up his case. Saqr, in remarks published Monday, said the meeting was attended -- besides Hariri and the mediator -- by five other people. He said when Hariri rejected Sayyed's offer, the envoy returned to reduce the blackmail by half. "That person came back asking for $7.5 million. But Hariri, again, told him "I reject this kind of cheap settlement,'" Saqr said. Sayyed, who was placed in temporary detention in Lebanon in 2005 for his alleged involvement in Hariri's assassination and released in 2009 due to lack of evidence, has asked the STL to release his secret case file on the 2005 assassination to learn why he had been jailed for nearly four years without charge. Saqr said Sayyed offended Syria and distorted the truth for personal gains. "He (Sayyed) is a false witness," Saqr claimed, adding that the former officer's accusations will have no impact on the internal truce in Lebanon. Saqr was responding to Sayyed, who held a press conference on Sunday to discuss the issue of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and Hariri's stance on the so-called "false witnesses" case. Sayyed's "claims are empty because he has lost some of his memory and his psychological state is worsening," Saqr said. Sayyed is "currently trying to transform his personal problem into a public crisis," added Saqr, who is a member of the Hariri-led Lebanon First parliamentary bloc. Saqr ruled out that Sayyed's remarks had "any political significance," saying that he did not believe that "these remarks reflect the stances of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or Hizbullah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah." "Jamil Sayyed is suffering a complicated mental state and a certain psychological condition after the man lost his authority to find himself now outside power," Saqr said, calling on Sayyed "to solve his psychological problem, but not at the expense of the honorable Lebanese and their dignities." Saqr stressed that the Lebanese Judiciary must deal with Sayyed's remarks, "especially comments against judges and death threats against some Lebanese (political) leaders and public officials." "Jamil Sayyed in a pillar of corruption," Saqr concluded. "Corruption became clear, including Sayyed's palace, which he boasts that it even appears on Google Earth," Saqr uncovered. "Sayyed built his palace on the skulls of many Lebanese who were humiliated, robbed of their money and probably killed," he added. "If there were a State in Lebanon, Sayyed would have been put in jail a long time ago," before Hariri's 2005 assassination "in cases that were proven against him," Saqr stated. Sayyed on Sunday attacked Hariri, accusing him of being behind false witnesses in Hariri's assassination. Sayyed said Hariri along with his "political, media, judicial and security team" joined forces with former head of the U.N. investigation committee Detlev Mehlis to use the murder as a plot aimed against Syria and to grab power in Lebanon. "That is why we see Saad Hariri desperate to defend false witnesses and stand against holding them accountable; because if they fall, this authority will fall from top to bottom," Sayyed said He even threatened to take justice into his own hands if Hariri did not act to put false witnesses on trial. "I vow upon my honor that if you (Hariri) do not give me my right, I will take it with my own hands some day," Sayyed vowed. "Jail me," he said, calling on Hariri to undertake a polygraph lie detector test to prove that he did not support or fund false witnesses.. Posted by: Fred 2010-09-14 |
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