http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/world/middleeast/lebanese-police-accuse-syria-in-kidnapping-of-dissidents.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

 

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October 31, 2011

Syria Accused of Kidnapping 4 in Lebanon

By NADA BAKRI

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Lebanese police have accused Syria of orchestrating the kidnapping of Syrian dissidents in Lebanon, a country that has served as a haven for them since the uprising against the government of President Bashar al-Assad began nearly eight months ago.

In one case, Shibli al-Aisamy, 89, a founder of Syria’s governing Baath Party who has become a leading voice of dissent against Mr. Assad, disappeared in late May while visiting his daughter outside Beirut. He went out for a walk and was picked up by people in a black sport utility vehicle, who spirited him across the border, the Lebanese police said.

In another case, the police said, three Syrian brothers, the Jassems, were kidnapped in February by rogue members of the Lebanese security forces using Syrian Embassy vehicles, again black S.U.V.’s. The Jassem brothers have not been heard from since.

In closed-door testimony before the Lebanese Parliament in October, the head of the Internal Security Forces, Gen. Ashraf Rifi, said Syria was behind both kidnappings and presented a detailed report with license plate numbers, cellphone records and statements from witnesses that he said implicated Lebanese security officers and tracked the cars to the Syrian border.

A parliamentary report on his testimony, later leaked to the news media, said that General Rifi “personally accuses the Syrian Embassy in Lebanon of kidnapping Aisamy in an operation that was similar to the abduction of the Jassem brothers.”

Syria has a long history of meddling in Lebanon with impunity, and occupied it militarily until 2005, when it was accused of involvement in the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri.

General Rifi’s report suggests that Syria can still reach across the border to repress dissent, with the aid of members of Lebanon’s security forces, its former client.

A spokeswoman for the Syrian Embassy denied the accusations, saying that they were not supported by evidence. She added that the embassy was closely following both cases with the Lebanese authorities.

The leaked report ignited a firestorm of debate in Lebanon, which remains deeply divided between those opposed to Syria and those allied with it.

Syria maintains a great deal of influence here. Its ally, the Shiite militant movement Hezbollah, is the single most powerful political player, and has the ability to bring down the government. Pro-Syrian parties, including Hezbollah, have a majority in Parliament.

The Lebanese government has made no public comment or taken any official action on the kidnapping accusation.

“These cases are shocking, but I would be lying if I said I am surprised,” said Nadim Houry, Human Rights Watch’s senior researcher for Syria and Lebanon. “Anything that is slightly sensitive or that touches Syria, Lebanese judiciary is incapable to do anything about it.”

More than 5,000 Syrians have fled to Lebanon since the crisis escalated in mid-March, human rights groups say, and many of them have been subject to daily threats and forced to change their locations periodically. There have also been reports of Syrian troops’ crossing briefly into Lebanon and firing on people trying to flee.

The kidnapping cases appear to demonstrate Mr. Assad’s intent to prevent Lebanon from becoming a refuge for Syrian dissidents, and a staging ground for plots against his government.

Mr. Aisamy’s daughter, Rajaa Sharafeddine, said her father was kidnapped on May 24, five days after he had arrived in Lebanon from the United States, where he holds permanent residency. At about 4:30 p.m., she said, he left his house in Aley, in the mountains overlooking Beirut, for his daily walk and never returned.

A month or so later, a witness told the police that a black S.U.V. with dark tinted windows had pulled up in front of Mr. Aisamy during his walk and he was taken away. According to the police report, two other witnesses said they saw three black S.U.V.’s with tinted windows on the same road that day, a strange sight on a rural road.

The three crossed into Syria that day through the Masna’a border crossing, according to General Rifi’s investigation.

“We were really surprised by this operation,” Ms. Sharafeddine said. She said that her father had not been involved in Syrian politics for years and that he had no relations with opposition figures in or outside of Syria. Since he left the country in 1966, he has lived in exile in Iraq, Egypt and the United States.

Because of his age, Ms. Sharafeddine said, her father was not even closely following the Arab revolts that had erupted across the region this year.

There have been reports that Mr. Aisamy was abducted because he was about to publish his memoirs, which could deeply embarrass a government that maintains a rigorous veil of secrecy. Whatever happens to Mr. Aisamy, his family still intends to publish the memoirs.

Some analysts said Syria might have feared he had returned to Lebanon to try to turn the Druse, a small religious minority group he belongs to, against the Syrian government.

The Jassem brothers, on the other hand, were actively working against Mr. Assad’s government.

On Feb. 23, days before protests broke out in southern Syria and spread to the rest of the country, members of Lebanese Army intelligence arrested Jassem al-Jassem, a Syrian day laborer, in Hazmieh, on the outskirts of Beirut, for distributing fliers calling for a demonstration outside the Syrian Embassy.

The next day, he was transferred to a police station in Baabda, near Hazmieh, where a judge found him not guilty — distributing fliers is not a crime — and ordered his release at 12:30 a.m. He was allowed to call his family, and his two brothers drove to the station in the dead of night to pick him up, according to the police investigation.

The police report said that a black S.U.V. with dark tinted windows and an Internal Security Forces plate arrived at the police station shortly before Mr. Jassem’s release. When his brothers arrived, the driver of the S.U.V. ordered them into the car. When Mr. Jassem was released, he, too, was forced into the car.

“The Jassem brothers were kidnapped by Lebanese security forces using vehicles that belong to the Syrian Embassy in Lebanon,” General Rifi told Parliament. Because Lebanon provides security to the embassy, an embassy car could have an Internal Security Force license plate.

General Rifi said a Lebanese police lieutenant who was in charge of security at the Syrian Embassy in Beirut, Salah al-Hajj, was involved in the abductions and acting under orders from Syrian officials.

Cellphone records show that on the night of Feb. 24, Lieutenant Hajj traveled from Baabda, where Mr. Jassem was held, to Yanta, on the Syrian border, where, according to the police report, he met with Abu Rateb, an official of an armed Palestinian faction allied with Syria.

The phone records also show that Lieutenant Hajj made 19 calls to Mr. Abu Rateb before the abduction, 10 calls to him the day of the kidnapping, and one the next day.

Lieutenant Hajj, the son of Gen. Ali al-Hajj, one of the four officers accused in the killing of Mr. Hariri, has denied involvement in the kidnapping. He said he was in Baabda the night the brothers disappeared, but was there accompanying the Syrian ambassador, who was having dinner at the house of a politician who lives nearby.

Lieutenant Hajj has been transferred from duty at the Syrian Embassy, but the public prosecutor told Parliament last week that he did not have enough evidence to charge him.

Meanwhile, if the missing Syrians were indeed kidnapped, no one has asked the families for ransom. If they were killed, no bodies have turned up.

“They have had him for five months — it is enough, they should return him,” said Dalia Sharafeddine, Mr. Aisamy’s granddaughter. “We want him to die in peace, in his own bed, and we want to bury him with respect.”

Hwaida Saad contributed reporting.

© 2011 The New York Times Company

 

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