Sayyed, former head of General Security, was detained from 2005 to 2009 without charges on suspicion of involvement in former Prime Minister Martyr Rafik Hariri’s 2005 assassination. In April 2009, the STL ordered his release due to lack of evidence. While saying the tribunal knows that Hariri's political, security and judicial team were behind false witnesses in Rafik Hariri's assassination case, Sayyed said Special Tribunal for Lebanon Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare should have summoned them and questioned them. He also called on Bellemare and STL President Antonio Cassese to resign “so that they will not [stand] beside counterfeiters”.
Sayyed said that international investigators themselves admitted that some witnesses had changed their testimony or been found to be lying. He indicated that the tribunal doesn't want to prosecute the false witnesses because “big heads would roll.”“After all you have done to Syria, (Syrian President) Bashar Assad hugged you rather than hanging you to death,” Sayyed said addressing Hariri. “It's not enough for Hariri to admit that he erred, he has to pay the price of his mistakes,” the former security chief told reporters about Hariri's latest statement to pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat.
Accusations against Syria were not political, they were crimes of slander that require trial, according to the former general.
In July 2010, the STL held a public hearing over Sayyed’s request for documents related to his imprisonment. He says he was the victim of false testimony.
Sayyed told Hariri that if he does not give him his right, “I swear on my honour that I [will] take it with my own hand,” and called on the people to “revolt against authority.”
Sayyed also warned that he will ask the Syrian government to issue arrest warrants in absentia for Lebanese against whom he filed charges in Syrian courts.
After meeting Assad, Jamil Sayyed accuses Hariri of backing false witnesses ...
What is noteworthy is the fact that Sayyed came out shooting AFTER he met Bashar Assad. This is exactly what I said: The Syrians are not biting into Hariri's shenanigans.
"... “Your right to demand the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) has fallen … enough, the issue is over. [You should say] my father is dead and the tribunal is over,...“That is why we see Saad Hariri dying to defend false witnesses and stand against holding them accountable; because if they fall, this authority will fall from top to bottom,” Sayyed said.
Commenting on Hariri’s recent remarks to the pan-Arab Ash-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper, Sayyed added that Hariri was not only required to visit Syria and renounce false witnesses, but also to hold them accountable for their acts....
Sayyed’s sharp accusations against the premier follow talks last week with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus and coincide with demands by Hizbullah officials to investigate false witnesses as a crucial step toward political and security stability in Lebanon....
In sharp tones, the former general slammed Hariri and his coalition for continuing to exploit the UN investigation to implement the remaining clauses of UN Security Council Resolution 1559 by shifting accusations from Syria to Hizbullah and the resistance.....
Sayyed went further by threatening to take justice into his own hands if the Lebanese prime minister did not act to put false witnesses on trial. “I vow upon my honor that if you do not give me my right, I will take it with my own hands some day. [So go ahead and] jail me,” Sayyed said, urging the premier to go through a polygraph test to prove that he did not support or fund false witnesses...."
False Witnesses: Hariri Reconsiders Stance, Geagea Perplexed
11/09/2010 “Some people have misled the probe and harmed Syria and Lebanon… They have harmed ties between the two countries and politicized the assassination.”
The previous acknowledgement was made by Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri who finally admitted that the false witnesses were not an “invention” but rather a true phenomenon that harmed ties and changed the course of the investigations in the assassination of his father, former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.
While Hariri also admitted that he had erred in accusing Syria of assassinating his father after five years of rupturing ties with the neighboring country saying that the charge had been politically motivated, his allies didn’t seem to be “satisfied” with the new “rhetoric”.
For instance, Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea didn’t wait a long time before announcing his rejection of Hariri’s “reconsideration strategy”, mainly in the issue of the false witnesses.“Geagea’s position is not a new one,” Hariri’s sources told Al-Manar, adding that the LF chief is expressing his own point of view. The sources stressed that, far from the judicial meaning of the file, the false witnesses are politically fake and that they have harmed the international tribunal and the investigation.
Yet, what’s remarkable is that Geagea has ignored the fact that LF-affiliated Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar is studying the false witnesses portfolio since August 18 under the request of the Council of Ministers.
In this context, well-informed sources told Al-Manar that Najjar received on August 25 a ten pages file including data concerning five false witnesses: Mohamad Zuhair Siddiq, Hussam Hussam, Ibrahim Jarjoura, Akram Chakib Mra and Abdul Basset Bani Oda.
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