Hindi, Bassil Face Death Penalty for Israeli Contacts

On December 5, Lebanon's military tribunal formally indicted three members of the banned Lebanese Forces (LF) movement on charges of collaborating with Israel, and Investigating Magistrate Abdullah Hajj recommended that they receive the death penalty. Toufic Hindi, an advisor to jailed LF leader Samir Geagea, and Antoine Georges Bassil, a journalist for the Saudi-owned London-based Middle East Broadcasting Corporation (MBC), were arrested in August. The third defendant, former LF security chief Ghassan Touma, currently resides in France and was charged in absentia. Two other LF activists who have been released on bail, Salman Samaha and Elie Keyrouz, were indicted on charges of concealing information related to the case from the authorities.

Hindi was originally arrested for meeting with Israeli officials earlier this year to plan anti-Syrian agitation in Lebanon [see An Israeli-LF Plot? in the August 2001 issue of MEIB], but the indictment summarized Hindi's alleged contacts with the Israelis since he joined the LF in 1985. During the 1980s, according to the indictment, Hindi compiled intelligence on the political and military situation in Lebanon for the Israelis and traveled to the Jewish state to meet with Israeli's Lebanon coordinator, Uri Lubrani, and Lubrani's media advisor, Odid Zarai. In addition, Hindi allegedly maintained regular contact with an agent of Israel's Mossad intelligence service known as "Nakhoum."

According to the indictment, Hindi broke off interaction with the Israelis at the end of the civil war, but resumed contact in 1995, when he allegedly met with Lubrani in Paris. During the meeting, Hindi is said to have asked Lubrani to persuade the US to back Kesrouan MP Fares Boueiz (who paid Hindi's travelling expenses) as the next president of Lebanon and help secure Geagea's release from prison. The indictment states that Hindi met with Lubrani and Zarai several times over the next five years to discuss reviving the LF and organizing Lebanese resistance to Syria.

Bassil is charged with providing political and military intelligence during the early 1980s to Zarai, who resided in Lebanon under the alias of Samir Karam during the Israeli occupation of Beirut. According to the indictment, Bassil arranged the 1995 meeting between Hindi and Lubrani, met himself with Lubrani in London the following year and traveled to Cyprus in 1997 to meet with Zarai. The indictment states that Zarai offered Bassil $2000 per month to provide weekly reports on Hezbollah and Syrian activity in Lebanon.

Statistics: Syrian-Lebanese Trade Imbalance

Trade between Lebanon and Syria grew by 28% during the first six months of 2001, according to a report released by the Syrian-Lebanese Higher Council. Syria's exports to Lebanon totaled $159 million, while Lebanese exports to Syria amounted to only $16 million.

Although barriers to the entry of Lebanese goods into Syria have ostensibly been reduced, Lebanese businesses frequently complain that goods destined for Syria are blocked at the border for up to six months.

Former MPs Who Signed 1989 Ta'if Accord Call for Syrian Withdrawal

The Gathering for the Constitution and National Accord, a reformist group established by former Prime Minister Rashid al-Solh and other politicians who signed the 1989 Ta'if Accord, which called for an eventual Syrian pullout from Lebanon but legalized its presence in the interim, released a statement on December 14 calling for the restoration of Lebanese sovereignty. The statement expressed opposition to the "the presence of Syrian troops" in Lebanon and the "presence of military islands," a reference to Palestinian refugee camps, which Syria has prevented the Lebanese armed forces from entering. The statement also complained about the refusal of successive Syrian presidents to visit Lebanon (which, like Syria's refusal to open an embassy in Beirut, is intended to avoid recognition of Lebanon as an independent state). "For the past 27 years, Lebanon has been waiting for the visit of the Syrian President in response to the tens of visits that the Lebanese president had paid."

The 1989 Ta'if Accord, signed by the surviving members of Lebanon's last elected parliament (1972), permitted Damascus to maintain troops in Lebanon until the Syrian and Lebanese governments jointly determined a withdrawal date (which, due to Syrian control over the electoral process in Lebanon and the selection of presidents and prime ministers, has still not happened). The parliamentary delegates were assured by Saudi and American officials that Syria would withdraw after the restoration of government authority in Lebanon.

Released Detainees Recount Torture by Security Forces

Two members of the Lebanese Forces (LF) who were freed on bail this month after nearly four months of detention, Salman Samaha, the head of the movement's student organization, and lawyer Elie Keyrouz, recounted their experience in prison in interviews with Al-Nahar.

"They tried to tear me apart. They tied my ankles in rope and pulled hard in opposite directions," said Keyrouz. "They beat me and slapped me and kept me blindfolded and chained for many days and nights." Samaha recounts being blindfolded and hearing Keyrouz "screaming in agony" from a nearby cell.

Both Keyrouz and Samaha said they signed confessions out of fear that they would be subject to further torture. The two are expected to stand trial on charges that they withheld information pertaining to a criminal investigation from the authorities.