Canadian Media Enters Race: Hezbollah behind Hariri’s Murder

What's Going on In Futute movement

The CBC report shows nothing new EXCEPT that wissam al hassan was/is a suspect (that's huge) and sheds some light over Hariri-Inc. Infighting ..

"...Hariri is due to head a large delegation in his two-day visit to Iran. Iran, along with Syria, provides Hezbollah with finances, weaponry and training....

"Posted by G, Z, or B at 10:30 AM

Al-Manar: Canadian Media Enters Race: Hezbollah behind Hariri’s Murder

22/11/2010 After the Israeli media, the Canadian media entered on Monday the race and published a detailed report about investigations in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

An investigation by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp claimed that a Lebanese police officer and UN investigators unearthed “extensive circumstantial evidence” implicating Hezbollah in Hariri’s assassination.

The UN International Independent Investigation Commission's findings are based on an elaborate examination of Lebanese phone records, the Canadian report said. It added that the work of the commission, whose mandate has expired, has been given to the UN Special Tribunal, which will carry out prosecutions.

A spokesman for the United Nations, Farhan Haq, declined to comment Sunday night on the substance of the allegations, referring questions to the tribunal. But he said the UN has made it clear to CBC that the UN documents cited in its report "are United Nations documents enjoying inviolability under Article II of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations. Inviolability entails that United Nations documents cannot be disclosed to a third party, copied or used without the consent of the United Nations. Beyond that, I have no further comment on the documents at this stage."

The CBC report said that the head of the UN tribunal, Daniel Bellemare, declined a request to comment, and others in his office did not respond to phone calls.

The CBC's reporting also uncovered an internal UN document indicating that a top Lebanese intelligence official, Colonel Wissam al-Hassan, who serves as Lebanon's key liaison with the UN investigators, was considered by some UN sleuths as a potential suspect. Hassan oversaw security for Hariri at the time of the assassination but had taken the day off to take an examination at a university.

A confidential internal UN memo, dated March 10, 2008, prepared for the commission's top investigator, Garry Loeppky, said Hassan's "alibi is weak and inconsistent" and recommended that he be "investigated quietly" to determine whether he played a role in Hariri's killing. But the CBC report stated that the commission's management "ignored the recommendation" to investigate Hassan.

The report also faulted the UN for misplacing a vital piece of evidence - a complex analysis of Lebanese phone records that allegedly pinpointed the phones used by Hariri's killers - in the early months of the investigation. It also criticized the UN commission for failing to provide sufficient security for a key Lebanese officer, Colonel Wissam Eid, who was killed after helping the UN unravel the crime mystery.

Canadian CBC Channel Reveals Veil off STL Report over PM Hariri’s Assassination

Local Editor

Concerning the latest news on the media leakages related to the suspicious indictment expected to be issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), the Canadian CBC TV Channel broadcasted information and documents related to former PM Rafiq Hariri's assassination, which it purchased from UN sources.

The information revealed that a Lebanese army officer claimed, informing STL investigators, that there are strong evidences that prove the involvement of Hizbullah in Rafiq Hariri's assassination.

In a detailed report over Hariri's assassination, the CBC Channel referred that the results which the international investigation committee reached are based on information and data from the Lebanese telecommunication network.

According to the report, Hizbullah officials called owners of cellular phone which were used in conducting the explosion of the late Lebanese PM.

Col. Wissam Hassan, the ISF intelligence chief
who was Hariri's chief of protocol at the time of the bombing. (CBC)

The CBC report also added that there was neglected information that sets Head of the Information Branch Wissam Al Hassan as a suspect, considering that his alibi was weak, and answers about it were not accurate.

On the other hand, the report further added that there was a UN internal memorandum which was issued on March 10 2008, including recommendation to conduct a calm investigation to specify whether Al Hassan was involved in Hariri's assassination.

According to CBC, the recommendation was not implemented, and Al Hassan therefore was not investigated.

In another context, UN spokesperson refused to comment on this report, referring that the international organization clarified to the TV Channel that the UN documents which it referred to, are protected documents and shouldn't be published without the UN's approval. (Looks like  the Documemt is removed from CBC is removed - CBC Investigation: UN Tribunal 2008 report on Col. Wissam Hassan

STL General Prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare, on his part also refused to comment on the report broadcasted by the CBC Canadian Channel.

In this context, the "Israeli" Enemy Radio mentioned that a Canadian TV channel revealed the veil off the report expected to be issued by the STL, which is concerned with Hariri's investigation.

The Enemy Radio also added that the report will be accusing Hizbullah of the assassination.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

THIS is BIG: "Wissam Hassan & Hezbollah in cahoots? '"...

First it was Der Speigel, now it's the Canadian CBC

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

CBC Investigation: Who killed Lebanon's Rafik Hariri?


In the tradition of Middle Eastern intelligence chiefs, Col. Hassan is a puzzling, even feared figure in his own country.

He was on the UN radar from the beginning, for two reasons: He quickly became one of the inquiry's main liaisons with the ISF; plus he was in charge of Hariri's security at the time of the assassination.
Except he hadn't been in the convoy the day of the blast. And his alibi was flimsy, to put it mildly.

On July 9, 2005, Col. Hassan told UN investigators that he was enrolled in a computer course, Management Social et Humaine, at Lebanese University.

He said that on the day before the assassination, Feb. 13, he had received a call from his professor, Yahya Rabih, informing him he was required to sit for an exam the next day.

Twenty minutes later, he told investigators, Hariri had phoned, summoning him. Col. Hassan said he arrived at Hariri's residence at 9:30 that evening and obtained his boss's permission to attend the exam the next day.

He spent the entire next morning studying for the exam, he told the UN, and turned off his phone when he entered the university, which was at just about the time Hariri died.
"If I wasn't sitting for that exam," Hassan told investigators, "I would have been with Mr. Hariri" when he died.

A different story

But Hassan's phone records told another story entirely.

In fact, it was Col. Hassan who called the professor, not the other way around. And Hassan placed the call half an hour after he had met Hariri earlier in the evening.

UN investigators prepared a report on Col. Hassan in late 2008 that challenged his alibi and recommended that he be brought in for detailed questioning. (Report opens in a separate window.)

The cell towers around Hassan's home also showed that the next day Col. Hassan spent the hours before Hariri's assassination, the time he was supposedly studying, on the phone.

He made 24 calls, an average of one every nine minutes.

What was also disturbing the UN investigators was that high security officials in Lebanon don't normally sit for exams.

"His alibi is weak and inconsistent," says a confidential UN report that labels Hassan a "possible suspect in the Hariri murder."

That report, obtained by CBC News, was prepared in late 2008 for Garry Loeppky, a former senior RCMP official who had taken over as the UN's chief investigator that summer.

Hassan's alibi, said the document, "does not appear to have been independently verified."

That hadn't been for lack of desire on the part of UN investigators. They'd wanted to check out Hassan's alibi, to "get in his face," in the words of one former detective, and pick apart his story.

At the very least, they wanted to contact Rabih, the professor.

But Brammertz, the second UN commissioner, flatly ruled that out. He considered Hassan too valuable a contact and any such investigation as too disruptive.

'Might damage relations'

The confidential report concedes that investigating Hassan could have its drawbacks: "It may damage the commission's relations with the ISF, and if he was somehow involved in the Hariri murder, the network might resolve to eliminate him." (IT MAY LEAD TO WHO STAND BEHIND HIM AND HIS PARTNER SINIORA) My comment

Nonetheless, the report states that Col. Hassan "is a key interlocutor for the commission. He is in a unique position to influence our investigation. As such, questions regarding his loyalty and intentions should be resolved.

"Therefore, it is recommended that WAH be investigated quietly."

But even that wasn't done. The UN commission's management ignored the recommendation.

Former UN investigators remain suspicious to this day of Hassan, who, they note, was eventually cut out of the inquiry's loop.

But Hassan did become Capt. Eid's boss after the Hariri assassination. He certainly would have known about the sudden interest in the Eid report, and the meetings.

"He was an unsavory character," a former senior UN official said. "I don't think he participated in the murder, but there's no way of telling what he knew."

"He rose, at the very least, to the level of a person of interest," said another.

Reached in Lebanon today, al Hassan repeatedly declined comment.

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