Hariri witness ?was bribed? to implicate Syria

A Syrian man said he was bribed by Rafiq al-Hariri’s son to provide false evidence against Syria to the UN panel investigating the assassination of the former Lebanese premier, Reuters reported.

Hosam Taher Hosam, who identified himself as a former Syrian intelligence officer, said an elaborate scheme of torture, threats and bribery had forced him to testify against Syrian and Lebanese officials.

He said that Sa’ad Hariri met him several months ago and offered him $1.3m to provide false evidence against top Syrian officials.

Hossam also said that an interim report by chief UN investigator Detlev Mehlis to the UN Security Council implicating senior Syrian and Lebanese officials in Hariri’s killing was mainly based on his false allegations.

“It depended on my testimony by as much as 40 percent. I do not wish to exaggerate," Hosam told a new conference in Damascus.

He said that Sa’ad Hariri had told him he was convinced Syria was behind his father's death. "He had a feeling without proof that Syrian intelligence killed his father," he said.

The UN probe confirmed that Hossam was a witness who had approached the commission with information, BBC reported.

A UN statement released in Beirut said the investigation "does not offer, and has never offered or provided, any compensation in exchange for information".

However, a spokesman for the Hariri family denied Hosam's statements.

"This claim is fabricated. It is a lie and it is baseless," spokesman Hani Hammoud told Hariri-owned Future Television in Beirut.

“Collapsed”

The Syrian government has repeatedly denied involvement in Hariri’s killing, and has set up its own investigation into the murder.

Ibrahim al-Darraji, spokesman for Syria's own inquiry into Hariri’s assassination, said Hosam’s new testimony might discredit the findings of Mehlis’ report.

"From a legal point of view if the report is based on this testimony then it has collapsed," Darraji, an international law expert, said in the joint press conference with Hosam.

Hosam’s announcement came after Damascus agreed to allow UN investigators to question five top Syrian officials at the UN headquarters in Vienna.

Lebanese media says the five Syrian officials include the head of Syrian military intelligence, Assef Shawkat, a brother-in-law of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

According to Reuters, Hosam said Hariri supporters as well as anti-Syrian officials had detained him for a while in Lebanon and had wanted him to go to Vienna to confront the Syrians to be questioned by Mehlis.

He said they wanted him to implicate Asef Shawkat and Maher al-Assad, a brother of the Syrian President.

He added that he had been tortured and injected with drugs to tell the UN team he had seen the truck used in Hariri's assassination in a Syrian-controlled military facility.

Hossam also accused Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh of arranging for other witnesses to provide false evidence.

Mehlis has interviewed more than 500 people in connection with Hariri's death.

Syria has until Dec. 15 to comply with a UNSC resolution, backed by the U.S., France and the UK, demanding Damascus to arrest suspects identified by the UN investigative team.

The resolution threatens further action if Syria doesn’t co-operate fully.

Hariri’s death earlier this year prompted anti-Syrian protests in Lebanon and led to widespread criticism of Syria, which was forced to pull out its forces from its neighbor.