Middle East Intelligence Bulletin
Jointly published by the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon and the Middle East Forum
  Vol. 2   No. 2

February 2000 


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The Beginning of the End for Hobeika?
MEIB Staff

Elie Hobeika
Elie Hobeika
An official investigation by Lebanese judicial authorities into war crimes committed by former Lebanese Forces (LF) commander Elie Hobeika may signal the political eclipse of a militia leader once considered to be among the most loyal allies of Syria.

Earlier this month, Lebanese State Prosecutor Adnan Addoum appointed Examining Magistrate Said Mirza to open an investigation into the 1984 assassination attempt against Prime Minister Selim al-Hoss which is expected to implicate Hobeika. Hoss, who was minister of education at the time, survived the attack, which killed his driver and several bystanders. The decision came amid recent allegations by his former bodyguard, Robert Maroun Hatem, that Hobeika ordered numerous assassination attempts during the 1980's. Hatem, who wrote a controversial exposé about Hobeika last year entitled From Israel to Damascus, made the accusations during a January 31 interview on Qatar's Al-Jazira satellite television station. The allegations were subsequently confirmed by former LF security chief Asaad Shaftari in a statement published by the Lebanese press on February 9.

Prosecutors have recently opened investigations into two other crimes reportedly linked to Hobeika: the 1978 assassination of Zghorta MP Tony Franjieh and a 1985 car bomb attack that severely injured Sidon MP Mustafa Saad and killed his daughter, Natasha.

Saad, who has long held Hobeika responsible for the attempt on his life, has begun lobbying other MP's to lift Hobeika's parliamentary immunity from prosecution. Saad told reporters on February 10 that the assassination attempt was engineered "to spur a Christian exodus from eastern Sidon during the civil war, in a bid to turn Lebanon into ethnically pure sectarian cantons."

Judicial officials may open additional investigations into other allegations made by Hatem. During his appearance on Al-Jazira, Hatem also accused Hobeika of masterminding the assassinations of several rival LF militiamen based in Zahleh, an attempt to assassinate Druze militia leader Walid Joumblat, the execution of four Iranian diplomats abducted by the LF in 1982, the 1982 bombing of the Kata'ib Party headquarters which killed the late president-elect Bashir Gemayel and 23 others, the kidnapping of businessmen Roger Tamraz and Charles Chalouhi, and bribing former State Prosecutor Mounif Oueidat to "dig the grave of [former LF Commander] Samir Geagea deeper." Hatem noted that additional photographs and documentary evidence in support of his allegations will be available shortly in an upcoming book to be published in Arabic later this year.

Hatem has questioned the objectivity of the most recent investigative probe. In an open letter sent by Hatem to MEIB and other media outlets, he alleged that Examining Magistrate Said Mirza is on Hobeika's payroll. "I know that because I saw Mirza taking money from Hobeika with my own eyes on several occasions," he wrote. "Given this relationship, it will be impossible for Said Mirza to conduct a thorough and objective investigation."1

  1 Robert Maroun Hatem, Open Letter to Lebanese Prime Minister Selim al-Hoss, 11 February 2000.

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