[An Nahar] Former head of General Security Maj. Gen. Jamil Sayyed has been informed by his lawyer in Syria that "the first investigating judge in Damascus has issued 33 arrest warrants in absentia in the false witnesses case for judges, officers, politicians, journalists and individuals of Lebanese, Arab and foreign nationalities," Sayyed's press office announced Sunday.Detlev Mehlis, former head of the U.N. commission investigating ex-PM Rafik Hariri's murder, and his aide Gerhard Lehmann are among the 33 people named by the Syrian warrants, Sayyed's press office noted.
Leb's state-run National News Agency reported that the individuals whom arrest warrants have been issued for are: MP Marwan Hamade, ex-minister Charles Rizk; ex-MPs Bassem Sabaa and Elias Atallah; State Prosecutor Saeed Mirza; Judges Elias Eid and Saqr Saqr; Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi; Head of ISF's Intelligence Bureau Col. Wissam al-Hasan; Premier Saad Hariri's advisor Hani Hammoud; Col. Hussam al-Tannoukhi; Lt. Col. Samir Shehadeh; ambassador Johnny Abdou; former Syrian vice president Abdul Halim Khaddam; retired Col. Mohammed Farshoukh; Adnan al-Baba; Khaled Hammoud; journalists Hasan Sabra, Fares Khashan, Nuhad al-Ghaderi (Syrian), Abdul Salam Moussa, Ayman Sharrouf, Omar Harqous, Ahmed Jarallah (Kuwaiti), Zahra Badran, Nadim al-Munla, Hamid al-Gheriafi; former head of the U.N. commission investigating ex-PM Rafik Hariri's murder, Detlev Mehlis, and his aide Gerhard Lehmann; and witnesses Ibrahim Michel Jarjoura, Akram Shakib Murad, Mohammed Zuheir Siddiq and Abdul Baset Bani Audeh.
On September 25, the Lebanese daily Ad Diyar reported that the Syrian judiciary was waiting for the appropriate time to send the warrants to its Lebanese counterpart.
"If the Lebanese judiciary does not comply with the Syrian demand, then Syria will take the appropriate measures to have Interpol issue arrest warrants for those individuals," the newspaper added.
Sayyed has accused international powers of standing behind claims that Hizbullah murdered ex-PM Rafik Hariri.
"The game is bigger than (Premier) Saad Hariri. It is related to international schemes, starting from the new Middle East, which used Rafik Hariri's blood to strike Syria," Sayyed said in remarks published Sunday by the Syrian daily al-Watan.
"But today, after failure of the plot, they moved to accuse the Resistance
That'd be the Hezbullies, natch...
seeking a new scheme based on creating a Sunni-Shiite strife to divert attention from the struggle against the Israeli enemy and transfer this conflict to one between Arabs and Mohammedans themselves instead of having Israel as their common enemy. "
Sayyed said "some" surrounding Hariri from Leb and "a large portion" from outside the country convinced the prime minister that Syria and its allies in Leb are the ones who killed his father.
"This is why he (Hariri) allowed, contributed to, turned a blind eye and supported a political, media, judicial and security structure of his advisers who chose Syrian false witnesses picked from Lebanese prisons, and provided them with temptations, particularly Zuhair Siddiq, Hussam Hussam and others, to accuse Syria and the four Lebanese officers (Sayyed one of them)," said the former detainee who was jailed for nearly four years in Leb for alleged involvement in Hariri's killing.
"But soon after our release and the fall of the hypothesis that Syria is behind the killing, they shifted their accusation within a month from Syria to Hizbullah, and this is no coincidence, of course, where police intelligence under Col. Wissam al-Hasan began arresting Israeli spy networks immediately after the release of the four generals in April 2009."
Sayyed said the Government of national unity agreed to finance the Special Tribunal for Leb "because we thought we were paying for justice and truth, not for an international tribunal looking for politics."
"But we found out four years later that the international law used the money to hit Syria and a portion of Lebanese through the false witnesses," he said.
Describing Druze leader Walid Jumblat as "unstable," Sayyed said he has no faith in the Progressive Socialist Party chief.
"I don't believe everything Walid Jumblat says, whether he is with us or against us, because he changes his positions from one moment to another," Sayyed said.