Ex-Lebanon security chief: Jumblatt must be killed

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Jumblatt “must be killed,” former General Security head Jamil al-Sayyed was recorded as saying on an audio device, a source close to the probe into the case of former MP Michel Samaha told The Daily Star Thursday. “This [guy] Jumblatt is the first one who must be killed,” Sayyed, a retired major general, was captured on a recording as telling Samaha during a recent trip from Damascus to Beirut, the source said. Samaha, who is close to Syrian President Bashar Assad, was charged in August with plotting to carry out terrorist attacks in Lebanon, as well as assassinate religious and political figures. He was also accused of transporting explosives into the country from Syria. The local newspaper Al-Liwaa said Thursday that Jumblatt was briefed on the contents of the audio recordings retrieved from Samaha’s car during a recent visit to Mukhtara by police chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi and head of the Internal Security Forces (ISF) Information Branch Brig. Gen. Wissam Hasan. It also said Jumblatt heard portions of the recording which concerned him and that he had listened to the section in which Sayyed says he should be killed. When contacted by The Daily Star, Rami Rayyes, a PSP official, said he did not wish to comment on the reports. Sayyed repeatedly refused to deny claims that he had accompanied Samaha from Damascus to Beirut. A judicial source, however, said that Samaha’s confessions during interrogation and DNA test samples retrieved from the seats of the two-time former information minister’s car indicate that Sayyed was definitely in the car with Samaha during his trip from Syria to Lebanon. But no official request has yet been made by Military Investigative Judge Riad Abu Ghayda to question Sayyed as a witness or a suspect. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Thursday that the recordings from an audio device “found by mistake” in Samaha’s car also revealed new evidence in the case. “Recordings showed that Samaha made more than one phone call to [Assad\'s spokesperson] Bouthaina Shaaban and Ali Mamlouk,” the source said. “They spoke of ‘objects.’” Mamlouk, Syria’s national security chief, and another Syrian security official have also been charged by Lebanon’s Military Tribunal in the Samaha case. In his confession to the ISF Information Branch shortly after his arrest on Aug. 10, Samaha was recorded as saying Assad wanted bomb attacks in Lebanon. The Daily Star