07/08/2010 New information has been released concerning Brigadier General Fayez Karam who was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of collaborating with Israel.
On Saturday as-Safir newspaper quoted an anonymous source connected to the investigation as saying that Karam had been in close contact with the Israelis while a candidate in the 2009 parliamentary elections.
Karam, who is a Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) official, began working with the Israelis at the end of the eighties and they facilitated his stay in Paris for several years before he returned to Beirut with the return of General Michel Aoun in 2005, the source said.
The source said that Karam initially denied collaborating but confessed “within fifty minutes” after being confronted with evidence. The source added that the investigation was not politicized and that the evidence speaks for itself.
“Attention was attracted to Karam six months ago when a monitoring operation uncovered suspicious behavior, but authorities had waited to arrest him until they were satisfied with the evidence,” the source said adding that investigators were carefully monitoring Karam’s health since he had undergone open heart surgery not too long ago.
Al-Akhbar newspaper also quoted an anonymous source saying that Karam was not privy to secrets about the FPM’s relationship with Hezbollah or Syria. “All he had was marginal information that everyone in the movement knows,” the source said.
“In spite of the personal shock that struck Aoun and many in the FPM, General Aoun was not worried about what Fayez could have leaked to the Israelis,” the source added.
However, Ad-Diyar newspaper, quoting anonymous sources, reported that during the July 2006 war the Israeli Air Force (IAF) received and used information provided by Karam on the movements of Hezbollah leaders.
Ad-Diyar’s report said Karam befriended an Israeli officer during a training visit to the US in the early 1980s and supplied the Israelis with political analysis throughout the decade.
After he was released by the Syrians in the early 1990s, the Israelis facilitated Karam’s move to Paris where he gave them information on the Syrian prison in which he was detained, the paper said.
After his return to Beirut in 2005, Karam continued to visit Paris and answer Israeli questions about FPM negotiations for a memorandum of understanding with Hezbollah as well as OTV television’s employees and political connections, the paper added.
“Karam was close to FPM members involved in the negotiations with Hezbollah and the Israelis encouraged him to build relationships with Hezbollah and Syrian officials,” the report said.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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