HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK ---------------------------Hobeika taped "evidence" against Sharon before assassination: Beirut press
Agence France Presse
January 25, 2002
BEIRUT, Jan 25-- Former Christian warlord Elie Hobeika taped "evidence" on
the
Sabra and Shatila massacres during Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon
before he was assassinated, a Beirut newspaper reported Friday.
The Daily Star said the evidence allegedly implicated Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon, who was defence minister at the time of the
massacres in the Palestinian refugee camps of Beirut.
"On a pair of occasions ..., including one just two months ago,
Hobeika told editors from this newspaper that he has recorded his
account of Sabra and Shatila," said the Daily Star. It said Hobeika,
a former minister and intelligence chief of the Lebanese Forces
militia who was killed in a Beirut car-bomb attack on Thursday, had
told the newspaper that he "entrusted copies of the tape to
lawyers."
"According to him, he had evidence that would implicate Sharon even
more directly than is widely believed," said the English-language
daily.
An Israeli commission of inquiry in 1983 found Sharon "indirectly
responsible" for the camp massacres in which Christian militiamen
slaughtered between 800 and 2,000 Palestinian refugees in September
1982.
It charged that Hobeika ordered the massacres, which took place as
the Israeli army held positions near the two camps.
"Hobeika feared being assassinated" because of the trial being filed
against Sharon in Belgium by survivors of the massacres, said
An-Nahar, another Lebanese daily. "What will become of his secrets?"
It also asked what "revelations" he could have made to a delegation
of Belgian senators he met secretly in Beirut earlier this week.
"Assassination of Hobeika, the man who knew too much," headlined
L'Orient Le Jour. "He was in the front row of the (Lebanese civil)
war and without doubt held many of its secrets, which history will
now have more trouble unearthing."
Israel has slammed Lebanese accusations that it had a hand in the
assassination of Hobeika. Sharon himself said the "allegations do
not even merit a reaction from Israel."
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud implicitly accused Israel of being
behind the killing in a bid to prevent Hobeika from testifying
against Sharon.
A Belgian court is studying whether it can accept a case brought
against the Israeli premier, who resigned from the post of defence
minister as a direct result of the massacres.
A Belgian senator, Josy Dubie, said after the killing that Hobeika
told him and a colleague Tuesday he had new evidence on the camp
massacres and would be prepared to testify in any trial against
Sharon.
--------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST
==^================================================================ This email was sent to: archive@jab.org EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
