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PUBLIC Official Transcript Procedural Matters (Open Session) Page 1
1 Special Tribunal for Lebanon
2 In the case of The Prosecutor v. Ayyash, Badreddine, Merhi,
3 Oneissi, and Sabra
4 STL-11-01
5 Presiding Judge David Re, Judge Janet Nosworthy,
6 Judge Micheline Braidy, Judge Walid Akoum, and
7 Judge Nicola Lettieri - [Trial Chamber]
8 Wednesday, 25 March 2015 - [Trial Hearing]
9 [Open Session]
10 [The witness takes the stand]
11 --- Upon commencing at 10.01 a.m.
12 THE REGISTRAR: The Special Tribunal for Lebanon is sitting in an
13 open session in the case of the Prosecutor versus Ayyash, Badreddine,
14 Merhi, Oneissi, and Sabra, case number STL-11-01.
15 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Good morning. We will continue with the
16 evidence of Mr. Siniora today.
17 And good morning to you, Mr. Siniora. We trust you are
18 refreshed.
19 THE WITNESS: Good morning.
20 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: I just note the appearances. We have
21 Mr. Cameron appearing for the Prosecution. For the Legal Representative
22 for the Victims, we have Mr. Mattar and Ms. Abdelsater-Abusamra. For the
23 Defence we have Mr. Aoun for Mr. Ayyash; Mr. Korkmaz for Mr. Badreddine;
24 Mr. Hassan for Mr. Oneissi; Mr. Young for Mr. Sabra; and Mr. Khalil, who
25 is halfway through his cross-examination we hear, for Mr. Merhi. And
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 2 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 there are two representatives of the Defence Office seated in the court.
2 So you will have heard the good news there, Mr. Siniora, that
3 Mr. Khalil has assured us that he is halfway through his
4 cross-examination and has maybe 15 minutes to go.
5 Over to you, Mr. Khalil.
6 And just one further word, Mr. Siniora. We understand that you
7 are linguistically gifted and speak fluently the three official languages
8 of the Tribunal. We just had a little difficulty yesterday with the
9 French-English-Arabic relay around the courtroom, so could we just --
10 could I just ask you again to watch the transcript as you are doing and
11 wait until the words stop being typed. That will allow us to record what
12 you're saying. Thank you.
13 Mr. Khalil.
14 MR. KHALIL: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honour. Good
15 morning, honourable members of the Bench.
16 WITNESS: FOUAD SINIORA [Resumed]
17 [Witness answered through interpreter]
18 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil: [Continued]
19 Q. [Interpretation] Good morning, Prime Minister, how are you doing
20 today?
21 A. Good. Thank you.
22 Q. We will continue regarding what we were discussing today and the
23 last ministerial statement that was issued before the assassination of
24 Prime Minister Hariri. The government is formed of the Deputy Prime
25 Minister, Mr. Issam Fares. You were minister of finance. Mr. Marwan
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 3 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 Hamade was minister of economy and trade, and the minister of defence was
2 Mr. Mahmoud Hammoud, and the minister of interior was Mr. Elias El-Murr.
3 I would like to touch upon two issues in this ministerial statement.
4 The first issue is in the text in the Arabic language line 13 of
5 the ministerial statement, and in the English version it's line 16. I
6 will be reading.
7 "The government ..."
8 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Siniora, you've got a copy of that, I
9 think Mr. Khalil gave it to you to read overnight?
10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes.
11 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Khalil, you were reading something on to
12 the record.
13 MR. KHALIL: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour.
14 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Siniora, you've read the document. I
15 think Mr. Khalil has a question to you of this document.
16 MR. KHALIL: [Interpretation] Thank you, Your Honour.
17 Q. So line 13, Mr. Prime Minister:
18 "The government affirms its solidarity with its sister state
19 Syria in the face of all unfair pressure, accusations and threats against
20 it, including the Syria Accountability Act that is before the US Congress
21 and that affects Lebanon as much as it affects Syria ..."
22 My question, Mr. Prime Minister, is: On the basis of what is
23 mentioned in this ministerial statement, can we say that the Syria
24 Accountability Act was at the time unfair and it addressed unfair
25 pressure, accusations, and threats?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 4 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 A. First of all, I would like to say that this was an act that was
2 adopted in the United States of America. Number two, the people working
3 closely with Prime Minister Hariri had nothing to do with this act.
4 Third, one of the allies of the Syrian regime, General Aoun, and Prime
5 Minister Hariri had nothing to do at all, directly or indirectly, with
6 this. This statement mentions this act that was adopted by the US and it
7 asserts and says that this is a threat to both Syria and Lebanon. The
8 Lebanese government approved this statement and it was adopted by
9 Parliament.
10 Q. Thank you, Your Excellency. Can we say that the Lebanese
11 government presided by Prime Minister Hariri has asserted at the time and
12 confirmed its solidarity in the face of the Syria Accountability Act as
13 it was mentioned specifically in the statement?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Thank you. I will move on to the second point in this statement.
16 Line 26 -- in the English translation it's on the second page, the first
17 paragraph, and I will be reading.
18 "The special relations between Lebanon and Syria are a permanent
19 and crucial choice determined by legacy, history, geography, brotherhood,
20 and common interests, they are not a seasonal bet based on the
21 circumstances; the government is also determined to strengthen these
22 relations, both politically and culturally, and to develop them
23 economically, and to enhance them through common projects and the
24 organization of the exchange of facilities, services, and expertise in
25 the context" - and this is what is important for me - "in the context of
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 5 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 the Lebanese-Syrian Brotherhood, Co-operation and Co-ordination Treaty
2 and its institutions."
3 My question to you, Your Excellency, is the following: What we
4 understand from this paragraph is that the special relations between
5 Lebanon and Syria can be strengthened and this is a very important
6 choice. This can be done through the Lebanese-Syrian Brotherhood,
7 Co-operation and Co-ordination Treaty and its institutions. When we talk
8 about its institutions, Your Excellency, of course that includes the
9 security institutions that are mentioned in the treaty, in the
10 co-operation and -- Brotherhood and Co-operation Treaty, especially
11 Article 5 that refers to the defence committee that is composed and that
12 includes both the ministers of defence and interior in Lebanon and Syria.
13 Is this correct, Your Excellency?
14 A. Dear counsel, this is a ministerial statement that was adopted
15 and approved by the Council of Ministers. It is also based on this
16 treaty that we are talking about. Therefore, all what you are trying to
17 say and all that you're referring to in this paragraph and all the other
18 paragraphs of the statement is included in the treaty. The question is
19 not in the text, it's in the practices, the practices that were leading
20 at the time, and in the context of this Lebanese-Syrian security
21 apparatus it was leading to the consequences that we saw.
22 You are referring to these paragraphs. Yes, every one of these
23 paragraphs was adopted by the cabinet, by the government, and by the
24 Parliament and all -- everything in it is also based on the treaty. Yes,
25 this was adopted and ratified. This is not the question. The question
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 6 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 is: How was this translated in the -- into reality? How was it
2 translated on the ground? And this led to a violation of every item of
3 this statement.
4 There is a paragraph here that talks about the government, that
5 the government intends to further strengthen Lebanon's relation and it
6 talks about strengthening the judiciary, but we all know how the
7 judiciary was manipulated. Parliament adopted a law and ten days later
8 it has to rescind that law. The entire Parliament, do you know why they
9 had to do that? Because of the interference, the interference of the
10 Lebanese-Syrian security apparatus.
11 All of these paragraphs that you are reading, yes, it was adopted
12 by the government and by the Parliament, but the theory is one thing and
13 the practice is something else. And the proverb says: Yes, I hear what
14 you say and it's very nice, but then I see your practices and I'm
15 astonished by it.
16 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Siniora, can I just ask you to help
17 those of us who aren't that familiar with the Lebanese political system
18 or government system, what -- can you just describe very briefly what a
19 ministerial statement is, what's the status of this document?
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, the ministerial
21 statement reflects the policy of the government, and on the basis of that
22 ministerial statement, the government goes to Parliament and requests the
23 vote of confidence by Parliament, in order to allow it to continue its
24 work. The government cannot work and function without receiving a vote
25 of confidence from Parliament on the basis of this ministerial statement.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 7 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 It is, in fact, the policy of the government, the policy that will be
2 adopted by the government during its mandate at all levels: Political,
3 economic, social, and security, et cetera. Also at the level of the
4 judiciary, as you can see and as the counsel knows, we all know the
5 difficult experiences that the Lebanese Parliament went through because
6 it had to adopt a law related to freedoms of the citizens and the -- it
7 regulated the procedures of arrest, and ten days later --
8 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Thank you. You've answered my question.
9 Thank you.
10 I have another question based upon the type of document it is.
11 It's addressed to "Esteemed Prime Minister Rafik El-Hariri." We have the
12 wrong date on it in English. What's the date on it in Arabic, the
13 original? Can you just give that to me, please.
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Are we talking about the document
15 itself and the ministerial statement? The ministerial statement is dated
16 on the 17th of April, 2003.
17 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: The document I have has the date of the 17th
18 of November, 2014 -- 19th of November, 2014, which seems to be wrong in
19 day, month, and year. But it's an unrevised translation. I'm sure we
20 can sort that out.
21 Mr. Siniora, can you also help me as to why it's addressed to
22 Mr. Hariri as the esteemed Prime Minister? I understand he was the
23 president of the Council of Ministers. Why is this addressed to him?
24 Forgive my ignorance. Why isn't -- why isn't a document that he is
25 signing on behalf of the cabinet -- the Council of Ministers or the
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 8 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 cabinet which is addressed to the president or to the Parliament?
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I think that there is a number of
3 things that we can see on the first page of that document, things that
4 have nothing to do with the nature of that document itself. Because on
5 the one hand, for example, to the right, to the right of the document in
6 the Arabic language, we can see the names of six prime ministers and at
7 least the last two names that are recorded in this document, Prime
8 Minister Najib Mikati and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, they were not --
9 the two of them, in 2003, they had not become and they were not prime
10 ministers at the time. They had not been prime ministers before that.
11 So this document on the first page, there is an amount of documents and
12 information that has nothing to do with the nature of the document
13 itself.
14 In brief, all I can say is that this document refers the
15 ministerial statement that was dated the 17th of April, 2003, and that
16 was the time and the date of submission of the ministerial statement on
17 the basis of which the government received the vote of confidence from
18 Parliament.
19 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: I'm still extremely confused as to the
20 status of this document, Mr. Khalil, and one of the reasons for my
21 confusion is that we have a partial, unrevised translation into English
22 and the document Mr. Siniora is looking at is different in part. The
23 part he just referred to isn't included in the document which I can
24 understand in English. Is there any significance in this? I'm just
25 trying to work out what the status of the document itself is. That's my
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 9 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 concern. Can you explain that, Mr. Khalil?
2 MR. KHALIL: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour. This statement,
3 this document, is taken from the web site, the official web site, of the
4 Council of Ministers. So normally on the first page there is a menu that
5 we can see or a margin that -- as the Prime Minister mentioned, we have
6 the names of the previous prime ministers and this is the official web
7 site of the Council of Ministers. So we have taken this document from
8 the web site itself.
9 Regarding the translation into the English language, it was a
10 translation that was done here. It's unrevised, not official, so we just
11 translated the text of the ministerial statement and not the entire
12 document. And I would like to seek an exhibit number for this document
13 if the Chamber allows and then I will be moving on to another topic.
14 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: We will allow that, but first I need to know
15 what is the status of the document, and the question I asked Mr. Siniora
16 was: Why is it addressed to Esteemed Prime Minister Mr. Rafik Hariri and
17 why is it coming from -- why is it a document from the Council of
18 Ministers addressed to him, rather than a document from Mr. Hariri, as
19 the president of the Council of Ministers, addressed to the Parliament or
20 to the Speaker of the Parliament or to the president? That's what I -- I
21 just simply don't understand.
22 Judge Braidy tells me she can help me, but rather than getting
23 evidence from the Bench -- maybe, Mr. Siniora, can you -- all right.
24 Let's do this. Judge Braidy will ask you a question which is hopefully
25 simpler and more direct than mine.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 10 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 JUDGE BRAIDY: [Interpretation] Your Excellency, when the
2 ministerial statement is drafted there is a committee -- is there a
3 committee that is formed from the Council of Ministers to prepare this
4 ministerial statement, and therefore when this statement is prepared it's
5 addressed to the Prime Minister, the president of the Council of
6 Ministers, and therefore it is considered and later on adopted by the
7 entire Council of Ministers. Maybe you can explain the mechanism,
8 Your Excellency, and this will help us resolve this problem.
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] First of all, regarding the
10 procedures, when the government is formed and when the Prime Minister
11 suggests the names and announces them publicly to the Lebanese public,
12 the names of the ministers, there is a meeting that is held immediately
13 afterwards and normally is in the attendance of the president of the
14 republic. And then the Council of Ministers nominates a committee formed
15 of a number of ministers representing the various sectors at the Council
16 of Ministers, and they prepare a draft ministerial statement. Usually
17 this takes up several days or more, and afterwards the government -- the
18 cabinet meets and they adopt the final version of this ministerial
19 statement. It's not addressed to the Council of Ministers. On the
20 contrary, the president of the Council of Ministers takes it to the
21 Parliament and reads out the entire ministerial statement at a
22 parliamentary session in the presence of all the Members of Parliament.
23 The problem here is that this text, we have the list of the
24 ministers, the cabinet formation, and the ministerial statement, it's
25 taken from the web site of the Council of Ministers. Here on the web
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 11 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 site at the time we had -- you can see the names of the various and
2 successive prime ministers, those who are alive, Dr. Salim El-Hoss until
3 Fouad Siniora. And this information has been updated after 2003. This
4 is why - and for the avoidance of doubt - this information that we can
5 see on the Arabic document to the right, let's not look at it.
6 And as for addressing it to the Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, this
7 is also something that should be disregarded. What we need to look at is
8 the cabinet formation itself and the ministerial statement. Yes, these
9 two are present, they are correct information, and as the counsel says,
10 he read out excerpts from them and I commented on them.
11 JUDGE BRAIDY: [Interpretation] Your Excellency, thank you for
12 this explanation. What I would like to say is that this statement, it's
13 addressed to Prime Minister Hariri because it is the draft. This is the
14 draft that is prepared by the committee that prepares the ministerial
15 statement. Is this why it is addressed in the heading to Prime Minister
16 Hariri and later on it was adopted by the entire cabinet and it became a
17 final and -- final statement?
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I think that this is the final text
19 if it's on the web site. On the web site of the Council of Ministers,
20 they will not include the draft ministerial statement, the document that
21 was discussed. They will put on the web site the final text.
22 JUDGE AKOUM: [Interpretation] I would just like to clarify one
23 thing. What you're saying is 100 per cent true. This is the final text,
24 not the draft. The problem is that the final text was drafted in 2003
25 but this document was extracted from the web site in 2014. So it's quite
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 12 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 normal, in 2014, to see the names of prime ministers who were not prime
2 ministers back in 2003.
3 Regarding what Judge Re, Presiding Judge Re said regarding
4 addressing the ministerial statement to Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, this
5 is due to the fact that on the web site and because this government was
6 formed by the late Prime Minister Hariri, it's written "His Excellency
7 Prime Minister Hariri" and it was translated as is without distinguishing
8 between the content and what was written on the web site of the Council
9 of Ministers.
10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Correct.
11 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: All right. We have consensus around the
12 courtroom on the status of this document now, I hope. We don't normally
13 do judicial decision-making by consensus this way, but this one we will.
14 We will make it Exhibit 3D126. There's no objection from the
15 Prosecution.
16 Mr. Khalil, I'm not going to ask you to try and describe what it
17 is for the record because we have three pages -- four pages of transcript
18 doing that. Can you just give us the ERNs please.
19 MR. KHALIL: [Interpretation] It's number 3, Your Honour. ERN is
20 1DT3-0023 to 1DT3-0027.
21 THE INTERPRETER: Notes from the interpreter regarding the
22 English translation. The Arabic text says: "Your Excellency" and it's
23 followed by "Your Excellencies the Members of Parliaments," whereas in
24 the English translation it says: "Esteemed Prime Minister
25 Rafik El-Hariri," so this might be the reason behind the confusion. But
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 13 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 this is just a note from the interpreters.
2 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: You may have seen me look on my face then,
3 the involuntary look on my face. That was the entire point of my
4 confusion as to why it was addressed to Mr. Hariri as opposed to the
5 Members of Parliament.
6 Mr. Khalil, next time you submit these documents, can you please
7 check them against the Arabic text and can you please submit a revised
8 translation as soon as possible. And can we move on.
9 MR. KHALIL: [Interpretation] Yes, of course, Your Honour. We
10 will take that into account.
11 Q. Your Excellency, regarding the Treaty of Brotherhood --
12 JUDGE NOSWORTHY: Just before you move on, Mr. Khalil.
13 Excellency, you had mentioned earlier on as to the problem being
14 in implementation and you spoke about the strengthening of the judiciary
15 and you went on to say: We all know how the judiciary was manipulated.
16 What are some of the ways in which the judiciary was manipulated as far
17 as you were aware?
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, every ministerial
19 statement of every single government in Lebanon included express words,
20 express statements regarding the independence of the judiciary and
21 safe-guarding it and safe-guarding the independence of Parliament. It
22 also included the principle of division of powers, which was the basis of
23 our constitution or separation of powers. This government says that it
24 will be keen on strengthening the independence of the judiciary in order
25 to guarantee the rights of citizens. It also reiterates the importance
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 14 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 of the independence of Parliament and the legislative power, et cetera.
2 During the time when the Lebanese-Syrian security apparatus was
3 manipulating the laws and even the judiciary at courts, Parliament
4 adopted and ratified a law, a law that is related to the freedoms of
5 citizens and the procedures related to the duration of arrest, arrest of
6 individuals who are considered or against whom charges have been laid or
7 suspected. This law was adopted by Parliament. The law was then
8 referred to the president of the republic to be signed. The president
9 rejected it. Parliament again readopted that law and it is one of the
10 prerogatives of Parliament. Afterwards and as a result of the pressures,
11 the Parliament had to adopt a different law to rescind the articles that
12 were included in the initial and the original law. I'm giving this as an
13 example on how laws were manipulated at the time and this is some of the
14 practices that we had to suffer from.
15 And yesterday I also mentioned two examples about the -- how the
16 security services interfered with the work of the political --
17 politicians, and I mentioned two examples of the interference of the
18 security systems and security agencies. First of all, I mentioned the
19 raid against the Ministry of Finance when I was minister of finance. And
20 later on there was a letter by the minister of defence at the time,
21 Mr. Mohsen Dalloul. He wrote a book and mentioned how the security
22 agencies and the Lebanese-Syrian security apparatus interfered in the
23 work of the various government institutions. Later on --
24 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: I'm just asking you to pause there for a
25 moment. Judge Nosworthy asked you: What are some of the ways in which
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 15 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 the judiciary was manipulated as far as you are aware? That's what she
2 was asking you and we're just interested in that part of the answer. So
3 if you have some examples of that, could you please give it to us; and if
4 we need to, we'll come to the Ministry of Finance or other things at a
5 later point.
6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I was simply
7 mentioning some examples of this manipulation and interference,
8 manipulation and interference in the work of the judiciary, in the work
9 of the legislative power, by forcing Parliament to modify and adopt new
10 laws. I also wanted to mention an example of what happened in 1998,
11 particularly the legal proceedings against a number of individuals who
12 were close to Prime Minister Hariri and addressing charges to them and
13 charging them on the basis of several legal decisions. I was just
14 mentioning this as an example, Your Honour, just to show how this was
15 being translated into practice. There are dozens of examples that I can
16 mention and talk about. This is why I was mentioning these issues,
17 simply to give an example.
18 JUDGE NOSWORTHY: Thank you, Excellency.
19 MR. KHALIL: [Interpretation]
20 Q. Prime Minister, with regard to the treaty of fraternity and
21 co-ordination, you said yesterday that this treaty was not repealed. Did
22 this treaty remain valid also during the mandate of president of the
23 republic, Michel Suleiman, the last president?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. So it wasn't repealed by President Suleiman?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 16 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 A. It needs a Parliament for that.
2 Q. Do you know, Prime Minister, that there were meetings taking
3 place of the security committee at -- including the two ministers of the
4 interior, Syrian and Lebanese, and in the presence of the
5 Secretary-General, Mr. Nasri Khoury?
6 A. I suppose yes. I wasn't following these meetings, but I suppose
7 yes.
8 MR. KHALIL: [Interpretation] Can we show the Prime Minister the
9 document number 6 on the presentation queue.
10 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: This is a photograph of a meeting before a
11 large photograph of President Assad of Syria, on which someone has
12 written helpfully the names of the participants on it in hand.
13 MR. KHALIL: [Interpretation] Yes, Your Honour, this is a meeting
14 of the Security Committee at ministerial level with the presence of the
15 Syrian and the Lebanese ministers of the interior. I shall read the
16 names of the people who are present, and if I have made a mistake perhaps
17 you will want to correct me.
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, this is correct.
19 MR. KHALIL: [Interpretation]
20 Q. Very quickly, then, we have --
21 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: The date and location, please.
22 MR. KHALIL: [Interpretation] The venue is Damascus in Syria. The
23 date the 10th of November, 2008. So in the middle we find the
24 Secretary-General of the Higher Lebanese-Syrian Council, Mr. Nasri
25 Khoury, to his left, the Lebanese delegation. On the right of the
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 17 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 picture you will find the Lebanese delegation. Minister Ziad Baroud who
2 was minister of the interior. To his right, Major-General Achraf Rifi,
3 who was the director-general of the Internal Security Forces. To his
4 right, Major-General Wafiq Jezzini, who was the director-general of
5 general security. To his right, Colonel Pierre Salim, who is the adviser
6 to Minister Ziad Baroud and an army officer. And on the extreme right,
7 Colonel Elias Khoury, Secretary-General of the -- who is an army officer
8 as well.
9 As for the Syria delegation on the left, first of all, the
10 minister of the interior of Syria, Minister Major-General Bassam
11 Abdel-Majid. To the left of him, Major-General Mustafa Sukkari
12 El-Mustafa, who is an assistant to the minister of the interior.
13 Standing to his left, Major-General Ibrahim Salman Ali, assistant to the
14 minister of the interior. Again to the left, Major-General Mohammed
15 Ali -- or rather, Major-General Ismail Ismail, who is head of immigration
16 and passports directorate. On the left of him, General Talal Assad, we
17 can only see his face, he's head of public relations. And finally,
18 General Hassan Fouad Mokhtar, director of planning.
19 Q. Prime Minister, during that meeting or while this -- when this
20 meeting took place, who was the prime minister of Lebanon?
21 A. I was prime minister of Lebanon.
22 Q. Thank you. This meeting which is taking place at ministerial
23 level with the two ministers of the interior of Syria and Lebanon, with
24 officers in the Internal Security Forces and the Lebanese army, has it
25 not to do with Article 5 of the Fraternity, Co-operation and
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 18 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 Co-ordination Treaty of 1991?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Thank you, Prime Minister. And I will end with two questions --
4 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: We're glad you're at that point, but what is
5 the relevance of this, because it was a meeting allegedly -- which you
6 said took place in November 2008. Are you going to make this photograph
7 relevant in some way?
8 MR. KHALIL: [Interpretation] It is extracted from the An-Nahar
9 Newspaper, the electronic page of the newspaper.
10 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Not the source, the relevance to your case
11 of this photograph of the security -- joint security meeting from
12 November 2008, the relevance to Mr. Merhi's Defence, please.
13 MR. KHALIL: [Interpretation] The relevance is that this picture
14 and this meeting relate to a meeting of the Security Committee at
15 ministerial level between the two ministers of Syria and Lebanon
16 according to the treaty that we mentioned yesterday, a treaty that goes
17 back to 1991. So this is an implementation of the fraternity and
18 co-ordination treaty in the security field.
19 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: I'm lost. The date was November 2008.
20 What's the relevance to the consolidated indictment, which refers to
21 events up to February 2005?
22 MR. KHALIL: [Interpretation] I just wanted to show that this
23 treaty, including its security committee, was being implemented before
24 the assassination of President Hariri and following that it was still
25 being implemented and when Mr. Siniora was head of the Lebanese
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 19 Cross-examination by Mr. Khalil (Continued)
1 government.
2 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: All right. How are we going with the
3 15 minutes which you told us you had?
4 MR. KHALIL: [Interpretation] One more minute, Your Honour. One
5 minute.
6 Q. Prime Minister, on the picture we see the director-general of the
7 Internal Security Forces and the director-general of general security.
8 Are the two directors of the general security and Internal Security
9 Forces, are they -- do they report to the minister of the interior?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Last question: Is the head of Lebanese military intelligence
12 reporting as well to the minister of defence?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Thank you, Prime Minister. This ends my examination.
15 A. May I say something here? I wanted to make it easier on the
16 Defence counsel, this time he took to explain this picture. This is a
17 treaty signed between the two governments of Syria and Lebanon enacted by
18 a law, and so long as this treaty has not been repealed the Lebanese
19 government had to respect it but he had -- it had to respect the
20 sincerity of the implementation that was taking place; whereas what was
21 happening was a number of violations of the spirit and of the nature of
22 this treaty through the various interventions and the bullying that was
23 being practiced by the Lebanese and the Syrian security systems, the
24 Lebanese system following the Syrian security system. Yes, the law
25 exists, the treaty exists, of course it exists. It's a picture that was
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 20 Evidentiary Matters
1 taken, yes, the picture was taken, but you haven't told us anything new
2 here. The issue is the practice. Thank you, Your Honour.
3 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Siniora, when Defence counsel are
4 finished, the Prosecutor will ask you questions designed to clear up
5 those sorts of matters. So we'll come back to some of those later.
6 Judge Lettieri I think had a question.
7 Before he does, Mr. Khalil, what do you want us to do with this
8 photograph from November 2008? Was it for information or do you want it
9 to become an exhibit in the proceedings? Is it relevant and probative of
10 anything?
11 MR. KHALIL: [Interpretation] If you will allow -- if the Bench
12 will allow me, I would seek an exhibit number for this picture,
13 Your Honour.
14 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Cameron was shrugging which I think
15 means he doesn't object or he doesn't see the relevance. All right. We
16 will give it an exhibit number, 3D127, but at some point you're going to
17 have to submit how it's probative, Mr. Khalil.
18 Judge Lettieri.
19 JUDGE LETTIERI: I begin by two premises. The first one is that
20 you -- shortly before you told that what you call Lebanese-Syrian
21 security apparatus used to interfere with the judiciary. The second
22 premise is that unfortunately Lebanon experienced a long series of bloody
23 attempts, generally by bombing cars. Given that, the question is the
24 following: Is it in your knowledge if the Lebanese-Syrian security
25 apparatus obstructed the judiciary in the investigation on -- upon these
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 21 Evidentiary Matters
1 attempts, on these long series of bloody attempts?
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I think that yesterday
3 or even before yesterday, on Monday, I think I answered and I said how
4 the security apparatus manipulated the site of the blast on the day
5 President Hariri was assassinated. And this is revealed by all the
6 investigations carried out by international teams. This is but an
7 example of how one can obstruct the work of the investigators and how one
8 can obstruct justice.
9 JUDGE LETTIERI: Well, apart from these events, is it in your
10 knowledge other concrete operation of obstruction, of boycotting? For
11 instance, another witness, Hamade, told us that the investigation on his
12 attempt were object of concrete manipulations. The file was deprived of
13 some documents, important documents, et cetera. So that speaking in
14 concrete, do you have any concrete information about and the piece of
15 news that Hariri told you concerning the plots were object of
16 investigation or not?
17 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Siniora, can I just ask you to pause for
18 a moment before you answer that.
19 [Trial Chamber confers]
20 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: I've just consulted with Judge Lettieri.
21 Can you just please answer that question generally but not in relation to
22 Mr. Hamade. Please keep Mr. Hamade out of this equation.
23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't want to talk about this,
24 but this is just another example of so many examples where there is
25 interference in judicial affairs. But you know about other examples from
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 22 Evidentiary Matters
1 the series of many assassinations that we witnessed over a large number
2 of years and which targeted high officials, journalists, religious
3 figures, and others. And investigations were supposed to have been
4 carried out, but we find that most of the time the -- there was nothing
5 to be found in the files, which means that there was absolutely no
6 attempt, no wish, no desire to carry out the necessary investigations, in
7 spite of the fact that some of them were deferred to the judiciary, but
8 no results were obtained. But this is just another sign that shows how
9 the security -- the Syrian security apparatus, with the help of the
10 Lebanese security apparatus, were obstructing justice.
11 There are other examples of people who were -- had threat --
12 accusations fabricated against them. There were directors-general in the
13 Lebanese administration while President Hariri was prime minister in the
14 1990s, and tens of -- hundreds of accusations were fabricated against
15 them. I remember, for example, Mouhib Itani, who was director-general of
16 Électricité du Liban, and Abdel-Mouneim Youssef, who was director-general
17 of telecommunications. They were arrested, they were jailed, and it
18 turned out after a while that all these crimes that they were charged
19 with were totally fabricated and they were released and they were found
20 absolutely innocent. These are just samples of the kind of interference
21 that was taking place and that were the kind of accusations against
22 innocent Lebanese in order to put pressure on President Hariri and his
23 policies.
24 JUDGE LETTIERI: For these plots that Hariri -- about them Hariri
25 made reference, for -- do you know the reason why no denounce were filed
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 23 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 about?
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I'm sorry, I didn't understand,
3 Your Honour, what you mean by "plots." Plots to kill him? What were you
4 talking about?
5 JUDGE LETTIERI: You spoke about plots to kill him. Okay. No
6 denounce was filed, do you know the reason?
7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yesterday I mentioned verbatim what
8 President Hariri told me. Secondly, as usual, and very often things get
9 uncovered, not only in Lebanon but in any democratic country, but this is
10 not made public. It is put aside, but it remains in the memory and it
11 is -- it remains in the database and it can be referred to later when one
12 wants to make a decision. This issue was not made public. All I know is
13 what I said to you. These words which I heard, as I said, verbatim as if
14 they are still -- and they are still ringing in my ears as if they were
15 being said now. I told you exactly what President Hariri told me then.
16 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: So you don't know whether any report was
17 made to the police? That's all that Judge Lettieri was asking you.
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I have absolutely no information
19 about that.
20 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Young, you're next.
21 Mr. Young for Mr. Sabra will now ask you questions, Mr. Siniora.
22 MR. YOUNG: Your Honours.
23 Cross-examination by Mr. Young:
24 Q. Mr. Siniora, may it please you. Mr. Siniora, I'm going to seek
25 your assistance in relation to two topics only, all right. Let me
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 24 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 explain what they are. Firstly, I'm going to cross-examine you on the
2 Lebanese-Syrian security apparatus. Then I'm going to cross-examine you
3 about Generals Hamdan, Azar, and Ali Hajj. All right. Now, before I --
4 may I say during the course of my cross-examination, which I think will
5 take two hours with a fair wind, I'm only going to refer you to one
6 document, just so you know, just one document, which I think will help
7 you and help the Judges.
8 There is one piece of advice I would like to give you before I
9 ask any questions, and that is that some of the points I raise may be of
10 a sensitive nature. And if you take the view they're too sensitive for
11 you to discuss or give evidence about in open court, then I want to
12 advise you that the Judges have the power to hear your evidence in
13 private session. All right. So I'm just giving you that advice.
14 Right. By way of introduction, you've told us over two days that
15 you were operating at a very high level for many, many years --
16 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Young, you've been in the proceedings
17 since the beginning. You know as of today the Trial Chamber has not
18 received any evidence in private session and that we have operated
19 publicly. There would have to be a compelling reason for us to go into
20 private session and we would expect you to notify us in advance that such
21 a compelling application may be forthcoming.
22 MR. YOUNG: Your Honour, it's simply this, that it's not that I
23 may take the view something's sensitive; it's simply that if the witness
24 himself considers that an area I touch upon is sensitive as far as he's
25 concerned, I just wanted to advise him that there was that option as a
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 25 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 way of protection.
2 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Thank you. I'm sure our Victims and
3 Witnesses Unit has also provided the witness with that advice, which is
4 their job, and Mr. Siniora is probably well aware of that. But please
5 continue.
6 MR. YOUNG: Thank you.
7 Q. Right. Now, Mr. Siniora, as I said, you operated at high level
8 as a minister over many, many years. Can you give the Court an idea of
9 when you were acting as finance minister how often these ministerial
10 meetings would take place in Beirut?
11 A. Usually it was a weekly -- on a weekly basis.
12 Q. And presumably, although you were finance minister, presumably
13 you attended many meetings, Mr. Prime Minister, in relation to issues
14 that touched on other areas, other than simply finance; is that right?
15 A. Yes, yes, possibly, it's true.
16 Q. Because of Lebanon's geographical position and its history,
17 presumably security must have been an agenda item at many of your
18 meetings?
19 A. Sometimes we discussed security matters and -- but that does not
20 mean that I attended all security meetings.
21 Q. Thank you. I'm not suggesting that, nor am I suggesting that you
22 have a detailed knowledge of security. Having said that, would you agree
23 that issues of security would have been of direct and immediate relevance
24 to you in relation to Lebanon's finances and its economic position, hence
25 you would have required a reasonable knowledge over security issues?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 26 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 A. Undoubtedly, yes.
2 Q. Thank you. Simply this, that presumably security considerations
3 can affect the nation's finances, not just for Lebanon, for any other
4 country?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Right. Right. With that introduction, I'm going to turn to the
7 Lebanese -- what's been described as the Lebanese-Syrian security
8 apparatus, and I'm going to go into some detail with you using a document
9 to ask you to help us describe that apparatus.
10 But firstly, I want to ask you what you mean by that expression,
11 the "Lebanese-Syrian security apparatus"?
12 A. I mean by that the individuals and the tools that are available
13 to them in terms of security, and they are very close to the Syrian
14 security services through the Syrian representative in Lebanon, whether
15 residing in Beirut or in Anjar. They would co-ordinate with him in all
16 issues and matters related not only to security but related to politics
17 and other matters, even not political matters. So they were using a
18 series of measures and procedures that violated people's dignities and
19 freedoms.
20 Q. From that -- thank you. From that answer, I take it you're
21 explaining that the Syrians and the Lebanese work extremely closely
22 together in relation to this apparatus?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Now, just to -- in terms of figures -- forgive me.
25 Two days ago, and in fact this morning, you spoke about
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 27 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 interference in strong terms in Lebanon by this security apparatus, and
2 you mentioned that there was talk that the security services sought to
3 subjugate Lebanon through the use of the security system. Do you
4 remember saying that?
5 A. Definitely.
6 Q. It's clear, Prime Minister, from what you say, that you did not
7 view this security apparatus as a force for good?
8 A. Dear counsel, the security services were a necessity and are a
9 necessity for any nation, therefore they should exist. Now, how they're
10 being used is a different matter. If they're being used for the interest
11 of citizens, for preserving their dignities, their freedoms, or are they
12 being used to completely ignore these issues and they are being used as a
13 tool for political or personal reasons. This is the essence of the
14 problem. No one argues and no one is saying that there is no need for
15 security services. On the contrary, no nation, no country, can develop
16 without the presence of the security services which are necessary. Now,
17 how they're being used, how they are being used as a tool for political
18 purposes, for the purposes and the interest of a certain party or a
19 certain individual or to punish certain people or to exact revenge, this
20 is the problem.
21 What we are saying is that there should be good relations between
22 two neighbouring Arab countries who have and share the same values. This
23 relationship should be based on equality, on full and complete respect to
24 the independence, the freedom, and the sovereignty of each other. Yes,
25 we do believe in that strongly. Prime Minister Hariri was really keen on
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 28 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 preserving equal relations based on co-operation and mutual respect
2 between Lebanon and Syria.
3 Now, when things change and are manipulated for different
4 reasons, this is where the problem lies, this is the bottom line.
5 Q. So the answer was no? It's not a force for good? I don't mean
6 to be flippant, but, Prime Minister, I have many questions for you. I
7 was asking you --
8 A. [In English] No, no, I know --
9 Q. Forgive me. I was asking you whether you viewed it as a force
10 for good; it's clear that you didn't. All right.
11 Now, can I suggest this that basically you viewed the security
12 services as a rash over the skin of Lebanon and it was a nasty rash you
13 couldn't get rid of; is that a fair way of putting it?
14 A. [Overlapping speakers]
15 Q. Forgive me, I didn't hear that answer?
16 MR. CAMERON: If I may, it might assist both the witness and
17 everyone else if there was a time-frame that was suggested by counsel in
18 the question which would focus the Prime Minister's thoughts perhaps more
19 acutely.
20 MR. YOUNG: More than happy to help.
21 Q. Now, when did the -- I'm principally interested, Prime Minister,
22 in February 2005, but the Syrian military presence was in Lebanon for
23 over 20 years, was it not?
24 A. Yes, it went on for more than two decades.
25 Q. Can you help us, Prime Minister, as to when the Syrian security
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 29 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 or Lebanese-Syrian security apparatus began to develop? Was it something
2 that happened within the few years before 2005 or did it start from day
3 one when the Syrians arrived in Lebanon?
4 A. Let me clarify one thing to you. It's quite normal that the
5 arrival of the Syrians in Lebanon was based on certain circumstances,
6 regional and international. And it was under the headline of restoring
7 stability in Lebanon and preserving security. Now, during that period
8 and like many other things, sometimes there are violations and the
9 reaction is that this is the exception, this is something temporary,
10 transitional, and therefore some of these things are disregarded and
11 ignored. But if these don't stop but they increase and if these
12 violations touch upon things that they did not affect in the past, if
13 they start violating the law and the constitution, et cetera, this is
14 what leads people to feel resentment and therefore people express
15 themselves in various ways. This is what happened throughout these
16 20 years.
17 These practices were not born in one day, the day of the
18 assassination; they were practices that went through and continued for
19 years, they increased and increased day by day, until a day when a great
20 number of Lebanese and citizens and politicians started expressing
21 themselves and these violations took various dimensions, these practices.
22 And again, I would like to give this honourable Tribunal this
23 book and you can see what a former minister of defence in Lebanon
24 mentioned regarding the violations and abuses committed by Lebanese
25 security services who were working upon the instructions of the Syrian
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 30 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 security services. I put this book in front of you. You can read in
2 these pages what the former minister of defence, I think this was
3 published in 2008, he mentions a few examples of what these security
4 services were doing. That was back in 2008. Can you imagine what
5 happened before and after?
6 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Siniora, that's not quite the way a
7 court works in terms of receiving evidence. The way it works is one of
8 the parties will come before us and present some evidence in support of
9 their case. If there's something in the book which one of the parties
10 wishes to present as a document supporting their case, we will receive it
11 in that way. You are perfectly at liberty to approach any of the parties
12 with the book.
13 Mr. Sabra -- I beg your pardon. For Mr. Sabra, Mr. Young will
14 continue.
15 MR. YOUNG: Thank you.
16 Q. Now, Mr. Siniora, I have many questions. I'd be grateful if you
17 could, with great respect to you, try and give me shorter answers. I'm
18 just trying to help the Judges with a time-line here as to when -- can I
19 ask this: Are you saying that effectively with every year the security
20 apparatus became stronger, over 20-odd years? Is that what you're
21 saying? I'm just asking a yes-or-no question.
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Thank you. When did the -- now, looking at the security
24 apparatus as it existed in 2005, how long did a security apparatus
25 resembling that apparatus, how long had that existed in Lebanon? Had
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 31 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 that been there for 10, 15, 20 years? Can you give us a picture about
2 the strength of the apparatus in terms of the state it was in in 2005?
3 A. We need to look at the chronology of events for the past 20 years
4 and mention each incident after the other and see how they were
5 progressing. Yes, this is the general atmosphere. Now, if you want me
6 to say specifically year by year, I do not have this information in front
7 of me to give you these specific details. But you can go back to all the
8 media outlets in Lebanon and look at the past 20 years and then you can
9 extract this information and the Tribunal can do that. As far as I'm
10 concerned, yes, these practices were increasing and progressing through
11 particular events and through particular reactions. And anyone could
12 have read these in the newspapers.
13 Q. Mr. Siniora, in terms of the major figures within the apparatus
14 from the Syrian side, can I take it there's no argument here that the
15 powerful head of the -- from the Syrian side was Brigadier-General
16 Rustom Ghazaleh. That's clear, isn't it, you agree with that?
17 A. I think that he was the apparent face of this security system.
18 Q. Right. Thank you. Well, we're going to come back to him in some
19 detail later. As far as the Lebanese side is concerned, who were the
20 major figures that liaised and co-ordinated with the Syrians within the
21 apparatus?
22 A. I mentioned yesterday one of the names which was Major-General
23 Jamil El-Sayyed, that was one of the names.
24 Q. Well, how many other major figures, other names, can you help us
25 with?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 32 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 A. I think that, for example, the four generals that were arrested,
2 they were part of that apparatus.
3 Q. Now, I'm going to take you to a document shortly which deals with
4 various locations, sections, and squads of the apparatus, but before I do
5 just a general question. Did the Syrian and the Lebanese factions, did
6 they share offices? Did they share garrisons? Give us an idea.
7 A. I'm not an expert on security matters and I don't think that I'm
8 well-placed to answer this question, but they don't necessarily have to
9 share garrisons. They can share information, communications, they can
10 have meetings, they can have shared decisions, practices, yes, but they
11 don't necessarily have to share offices. Anyway, that did not happen,
12 they did not share garrisons.
13 Q. Excellent. Thank you. That was my next question.
14 Do you have an understanding that because of their close
15 co-ordination, they would have had a shared database of intelligence
16 information?
17 A. I repeat, I am not an expert on security matters and on how the
18 communication was happening between them and how they were conducting
19 their business. But what we heard was that there was continuous
20 communication between them. And definitely when they do their job, they
21 would exchange information, they would exchange databases, et cetera.
22 But again, I am not an expert on that matter, I'm not working at the
23 military, and I never did.
24 Q. Thank you, Prime Minister --
25 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Young, just one moment.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 33 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 MR. YOUNG: Sorry.
2 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Siniora, can you just very briefly tell
3 us where did you hear it from?
4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Through the media, Your Honour.
5 The media was constantly reporting about the communication between these
6 services.
7 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Thank you.
8 MR. YOUNG: Your Honour, thank you.
9 Q. But your information surely didn't just come from the media,
10 Prime Minister. You must have gleaned some of this from the ministerial
11 meetings, surely?
12 A. There is no doubt that during several meetings it was mentioned
13 that X contacted Y and that X and Y met and agreed. Yes, these were
14 things that happened all the time, and again I say it is normal for this
15 to happen, but the question is: How is this -- how are these tools and
16 practices being used and for whose interest? Are they being used for the
17 interest of the citizens and the country and preserving the country? Or
18 are they being used against a certain political group or for political
19 purposes or personal purposes?
20 Q. Thank you. I didn't ask you why they were being used. I was
21 asking you if you gleaned some of this information from ministerial
22 meetings. I take it from your answer that you have gained some of this
23 information about the exchange between the Lebanese and the Syrian
24 factions in the apparatus from your attendance at these ministerial
25 meetings; you agree, don't you?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 34 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 A. I did not attend security meetings. I attended meetings during
2 which security matters were discussed and therefore, yes, I would hear
3 this.
4 Q. Prime Minister, most grateful.
5 Now, before I turn to go into some detail about the structure and
6 the layers of the apparatus, I want to ask a couple of general questions
7 about the nature of the Syrian military presence in Lebanon, this is in
8 February 2005. Approximately how many combat Syrian troops were in
9 Lebanon in February 2005?
10 A. I do not know. And I never asked.
11 Q. Well, you were prime minister and you were minister for many
12 years. Mr. Siniora, you must know the approximate figures. I'm going to
13 suggest to you that the presence was somewhere between 20- to 50.000 in
14 February 2005. What would you say about that?
15 A. First of all, in 2005 I was not Prime Minister. Second, these
16 figures would change between one period and another. I don't think that
17 they ever reached 50.000, I don't think so, but again and truly I do not
18 know.
19 Q. Let me put it in a different way. The Syrian military left in --
20 was it April of 2005?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. How many left? How many left as far as you're aware? Was it
23 about 20.000?
24 A. Those who left -- again, any information in this regard I got it
25 from newspapers. I do not have any official information.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 35 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 Q. But over the 20-odd years you -- over the 20-odd years that the
2 Syrians were there in a military presence, can you help us as to where
3 geographically their garrisons were, their central garrisons, for
4 example? For example, in relation to the 47th Armoured Brigade or the
5 62nd Armoured Brigade, the major -- the major brigades, help us as to
6 where they were?
7 A. I do not have any information at all, neither about the numbers
8 of the brigades and their locations and their figures and their
9 equipment. This information is not available to us. This information is
10 supposed to be military information, and in all cases I was not in a
11 position that would allow me even to get a quick information about this
12 at all. This is military information and I'm not a military man. I do
13 not work in the security field, I never held a security position. This
14 information was not available to me.
15 Q. Presumably when you became prime minister you would have acquired
16 a certain extra level of knowledge over security matters, both at the
17 time you were prime minister and about matters relating to security
18 before you became prime minister?
19 A. How would I be a prime minister before I actually became prime
20 minister? I don't understand, honestly.
21 Q. I don't think you're going to be able to help me with my next
22 question, but I will ask it. Are you able to give us any idea of the
23 nature and extent of Syria's special forces in February 2005 in Lebanon,
24 such as the 14th or the 15th Special Forces Division of the Syrian
25 military?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 36 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 A. Again, I repeat, counsel. This information -- and never at any
2 time in my political career, I was never aware of this information and I
3 do not have this information. I was never in a position that would allow
4 me to obtain such information. Therefore, you are asking me about
5 something -- you are asking the wrong person, actually. I never knew
6 this. I do not have this information, and this information was never
7 even mentioned in front of me, anything related to this.
8 Q. Fine. Thank you.
9 MR. YOUNG: Your Honour, I'm going to move to a different topic
10 now. I'm moving to the -- I'm going to use a document now in relation to
11 the apparatus. Would this be a convenient time to take the short break?
12 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Siniora has the document you've told us.
13 You might refresh your memory with the document over the break.
14 You've still got the document there, Mr. Siniora? You're nodding, great.
15 Okay. We'll take a break and we'll be back shortly. Court is adjourned.
16 --- Recess taken at 11.29 a.m.
17 --- On resuming at 11.59 a.m.
18 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: All right, Mr. Siniora, we trust you are
19 refreshed after having had a cup of tea or coffee and a -- maybe a Dutch
20 tea, speculaas, biscuit, cookie. I'm just putting you in a positive
21 frame of mind for the questioning.
22 Mr. Young, please continue.
23 MR. YOUNG: Your Honours, thank you very much.
24 Q. Yes, Mr. Siniora, I'm now going to, if I may, introduce that one
25 document I mentioned to you, and I hope it was provided to you last
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 37 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 night.
2 MR. YOUNG: Your Honours, I'm hoping this will assist you,
3 Mr. Siniora, and their Honours, the learned Judges, in relation to what
4 we've been talking about. This is the security apparatus. Can I have
5 please on the -- from the Sabra queue, may I have English version item 8
6 and Arab version 7 before the screen for the Prime Minister. The
7 redacted versions are at 9 and 10.
8 Yes, thank you.
9 Q. Let me just introduce this document before I ask you some
10 questions about it, Mr. Siniora. These are documents related to the
11 information provided by the Special Syrian Judicial Commission.
12 MR. YOUNG: Your Honours, they are in ERN range 10012150 to
13 10012169.
14 Q. And do you have that in front of you, Mr. Siniora?
15 A. Yes, yes, and I had a chance to look at it last night.
16 Q. I'm most grateful. Now, if we can start, could I ask you to
17 go -- yes, the first page that's on the screen, let me explain, there is
18 no pagination at the bottom of the page, but, Mr. Siniora, do you see at
19 the top right of the page there is a seven- or eight-digit number. I'm
20 going to refer to the pages by the last three digits. So the first page,
21 digit 151, do you have that, either in English or in Arabic? 151, it's
22 on the screen. On the left of the screen you see the English version, on
23 the right there is English but the rest of that version is in Arabic. So
24 do you have 151 in front of you?
25 A. Yes.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 38 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 MR. YOUNG: Yes, could we go back a page, please. Thank you.
2 Q. Now, just to explain and assist the Judges, this first page is
3 simply a letter from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Walid Moallem, to
4 Mr. Serge Brammertz, Commissioner, Chairman of the UNIIIC. It's dated
5 April 2006 and it attaches a document from the Special Syrian Judicial
6 Commission. So can I move on, then, to -- can I go to -- 154 I'll call
7 it, 154.
8 Do you see that, Mr. Siniora?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Thank you. Well, I'm going to just take you to some parts of
11 this because I think this document may assist in developing our
12 understanding of the Security and Surveillance Branch in Lebanon of the
13 Syrian forces. Do you see there that it says at the top:
14 "First: The structure of the Military Intelligence Service which
15 operated for the Syrian Government and dealt with the Lebanese Affairs
16 inside Syria ... during the period from June 2004 to December 2005."
17 Do you see that it says that? And then it refers to:
18 "Security and Surveillance Branch in Lebanon ..."
19 And it says:
20 "Its structure was composed of ..."
21 Do you see that?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Thank you. Now, to start with, very briefly, on that page that
24 we see at 154, I suggest what we see there is a description by the
25 authors of the purported -- it's an overview of the security in Lebanon
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 39 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 as far as the Syrians were concerned. I'm going to take you through it
2 and then ask you to comment on some parts of it.
3 So they seem to be suggesting it was in three sections. A was
4 Branch Headquarters; B was Branch Headquarters Sections; C, Sections in
5 the Lebanese Districts. And then it gives a list of the different
6 districts. Is that how you understood the Syrian side of the secret
7 service was organized?
8 A. To begin with, this is the first time I see such a thing. And
9 secondly, this doesn't add any information that I would find necessary to
10 know. And thirdly, I do appreciate how much time it took you to prepare
11 this document and to present it, but I will repeat the following. The
12 question has nothing to do with the planning on paper. Are the
13 intelligence services made up of this, that, or the other. What we're
14 talking about is the practices that the Lebanese were suffering from.
15 This doesn't add anything to my information and there's nothing I can add
16 to this and there's nothing new that I can add to this. This is just an
17 organization plan on paper which is either being implemented or not being
18 implemented, but this is not going to change anything to anything at all.
19 What we find is that there is a security apparatus that is being unfair
20 towards the Lebanese and that is acting arbitrarily against the Lebanese.
21 That's all I wanted to say.
22 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Siniora, can I just intervene in the
23 interest of time management -- let me start again. In the interest of
24 efficiency and time management, the time management being both ours and
25 yours, it would really help if you could perhaps confine your answers a
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 40 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 little bit to the precise nature of the question. Mr. Cameron, we know,
2 is planning to ask you follow-up questions when Defence counsel are
3 finished with you. I'm sure he will cover all of the things that you may
4 think are left hanging in the air. So can you please concentrate on the
5 question being asked by counsel and try and answer just that one as
6 succinctly as possible.
7 MR. YOUNG: Your Honour, I'm most grateful.
8 Yes, can we have on the screen page 155, top right-hand corner.
9 Thank you.
10 Q. Now, Mr. Siniora, top right-hand corner you see it says:
11 "A - the Branch Headquarters (it was located in Anjar) ..."
12 So what I'm going to deal with now is I'm going to look at the
13 three sections that are described there in the overview. Then I'm going
14 to go into each one in detail and see if you can help me. All right.
15 "A - the Branch Headquarters (located in Anjar)."
16 Now, from your many, many years of experience as a high-level
17 politician, you knew that Ghazaleh was based in Anjar, didn't you?
18 A. Mr. Ghazaleh, according to what I know, at the beginning was
19 stationed in Beirut; and then when he took over from Brigadier-General
20 Ghazi Kanaan, he was then headquartered in Anjar. And the date appearing
21 on this document shows that he became branch chief on the 16th of
22 October, 2002. And this is the question I was asked yesterday and this
23 is my answer.
24 Q. Thank you. So you agree with the content of the description of
25 the branch HQ?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 41 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Thank you. The second section is described as being the Branch
3 Headquarters Section and we see there it has one part, the Investigations
4 Section. Now, were you aware of the operation of this Investigations
5 Section, how it was organized?
6 A. No.
7 Q. It states it had three parts. The first part, as I mentioned,
8 was the investigations; second, the Military Security Section; third, the
9 Information Section. I take it you can't assist in relation to how these
10 worked; is that what you're saying?
11 A. Absolutely. I don't have any information about all these details
12 at all.
13 Q. Thank you.
14 MR. YOUNG: Let's turn now to -- can we have page 156, please, on
15 the screen.
16 Q. Mr. Siniora, this purports to describe the branches which operate
17 in the different Lebanese districts all over the country of Lebanon. And
18 do you see there that it explains at 156, just under C, it states:
19 "The Chief of the Beirut Section performed an added task: He
20 represented Syria in the security periodical meetings held by the Central
21 Lebanese Security Council."
22 Do you see that?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Please help us. What was the Central Lebanese Security Council?
25 A. It was one of the councils which included a number of security
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 42 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 individuals headed by the minister of the interior of Lebanon as far as I
2 know.
3 Q. Where would it have met?
4 A. I don't know, perhaps at the Ministry of the Interior or perhaps
5 elsewhere. This was a periodic meeting that would take place when
6 internal -- the internal situation would warrant it.
7 Q. I'm most grateful, Prime Minister. Can I take it, is this a
8 council that you yourself have personally attended at any time?
9 A. I don't remember having taken part in any of these meetings.
10 When I was prime minister, we would call for wider meetings that would
11 include the minister of the interior, the minister of defence, the
12 commander of the army, the head of Internal Security Forces, of general
13 security. But it wasn't under this heading, the Central Lebanese
14 Security Council.
15 Q. Thank you. But the persons you've just mentioned, are they
16 individuals you understood to be part of the council when it did meet?
17 A. Maybe the meetings were attended by representatives of the army
18 of -- it would probably meet with the minister of the interior chairing
19 the meeting. There might be also representatives of the leadership of
20 the army.
21 Q. Thank you. Would that include purely representatives from the
22 Lebanese military or may it have included also members of the Syrian
23 military?
24 A. According to the Lebanese law, it is for the Lebanese only to
25 attend such a meeting, but in practice perhaps people would be invited,
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 43 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 not to my knowledge, but perhaps there were people who were representing
2 the Syrian military who were involved and they would exchange views,
3 perhaps.
4 Q. Thank you. Mr. Siniora, so it wouldn't surprise you if
5 Mr. Rustom Ghazaleh had a seat at the table in some of these meetings
6 then?
7 A. I can't confirm or deny this, perhaps.
8 Q. Right. Let's move on. The different sections, I'm going to
9 suggest that this document discloses there were purporting to be seven
10 different sections of the -- of this service. Let's just look at some of
11 them. The first section we can see on page 156 is the Chtoura section.
12 Is it right to say that that operated, as far as you knew, in the Middle
13 Beqaa. You see in the middle of the page: "1 - Chtoura Section"?
14 A. For all these issues I'm not the person who is able to either
15 confirm or deny. I look at this structure, the structure of this
16 apparatus, but I'm really not qualified to know how the military Syrian
17 presence in Lebanon was structured, what the practices were, whether they
18 were sticking to this structure or not --
19 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Siniora, the question was simply: "You
20 see in the middle of the page: '1 - Chtoura Section'? I think Mr. Young
21 was just pointing you to that and was going to ask you something. So we
22 can all see it. The answer's yes.
23 MR. YOUNG: I'm going to move on.
24 Q. Mr. Siniora, so you understand, I will examine you on this
25 document. I'll ask the questions. If you can't help me, you can't help
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 44 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 me. But I'm going to the second section -- sorry, forgive me. The fact
2 that -- I want to ask you about how this section operated.
3 Now, the document suggests that that section operating from the
4 Beqaa had two squads. The first one was the Zahle Squad and the second
5 one was the Southern Section. Do I take it from what you've said that
6 you can't help me as to whether that's indeed how it was organized, in
7 squads? You just don't have the knowledge; is that what you're saying?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Thank you. Then we have -- forgive me, the second section was
10 the Southern Section composed of two squads. We can see at page --
11 MR. YOUNG: Can we have 158 on the screen, 158.
12 Q. Yes. At the top of 158 do we see the words "The Southern
13 Section," then it purports to have two squads, Rachaya Squad and -
14 forgive my pronunciation - Machghara Squad. Do you see that? Now, I
15 take it you don't have any information to assist the Court about the
16 organization of these squads as part of the Southern Section?
17 JUDGE AKOUM: Mr. Young --
18 THE WITNESS: Yes.
19 JUDGE AKOUM: -- it seems, before President Siniora answers, that
20 page 157 is missing.
21 MR. YOUNG: Ah.
22 JUDGE AKOUM: You skipped page 157 and you moved from 156 to 158
23 directly.
24 MR. YOUNG: Forgive me, Your Honours, I don't have a -- I'm just
25 using the document I have. I haven't got a page 157, I apologize, so I
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 45 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 don't know if there was a 157 or whether that's just a typographical
2 error. These are documents, Your Honour, that came from the Prosecution.
3 If there is a 157, I'm sure my learned friend will help me, but I don't
4 believe there is a 157. There isn't in the Arabic version, I'm told, if
5 that assists you.
6 JUDGE AKOUM: Because when you are talking about the squads that
7 follow to -- Chtoura, for example, and you are asking the witness about
8 it, maybe there are other divisions which follow this squad and we don't
9 know about it.
10 MR. YOUNG: Forgive me, Your Honour may well be right, but all I
11 would say is if Your Honour looks at 156 where it describes the Chtoura
12 Section, it only refers to one squad, that's the Zahle Squad. Then it
13 goes on to talk about the Southern Section, which is the second of seven
14 sections. So it may well be, Your Honour, that there is only one squad
15 in that section.
16 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: It -- no, no, wait, wait. Please just pause
17 for a moment, Mr. Siniora.
18 If you just look at the -- what's been put on the screen, it may
19 solve this pressing mystery for everyone. It says: "No page number
20 10012157." So there probably isn't one. If we accept that what is there
21 is true, there is no -- thank you, Mr. Siniora, I'm sure you were about
22 to point that out to us as well. Thank you.
23 MR. YOUNG: Thank you, Your Honour, very grateful.
24 So can we have page 158, please.
25 Q. Now, you see there it describes the Southern Section, two squads.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 46 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 Do I take it that you have no knowledge of these, as to whether these
2 squads were part of that Southern Section?
3 A. I have absolutely no information about this.
4 Q. Thank you. Well, let me move on. The third section, do you see
5 it describes the third section as the Baalbek Section. Forgive me, where
6 is the city of Baalbek in relation to Beirut?
7 A. It is in the Beqaa valley. It is in the Beqaa valley, which is
8 situated north-east of Beirut.
9 Q. I'm most grateful. Now, it refers to the fact that the Baalbek
10 Section has three squads, Prime Minister, and it describes them as: A,
11 the Talia Squad; B, Deir El-Ahmar Squad; and C, Al-Mahatta Squad.
12 Again, do I take it you have no information as to whether these
13 squads were in fact part of that apparatus for that section of security?
14 A. Correct.
15 Q. Thank you.
16 MR. YOUNG: Page 159, please.
17 Q. Now, Mr. Prime Minister, we see at 159 it deals with four and
18 describes it as the Tripoli Section. Now, Prime Minister, let me ask you
19 this: The document seems to suggest the Tripoli Section has two squads:
20 A, the El-Koura Squad and, b, the Tripoli City Squad.
21 My question to you is this: As far as your understanding is
22 concerned, and I appreciate you don't have expert knowledge of this, as
23 far as your reasonable understanding is concerned, would the Lebanese --
24 members of the Lebanese security services actually work alongside their
25 Syrian colleagues or counterparts physically in their headquarters? Was
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 47 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 that something you would have expected?
2 A. I have no information, but I would expect that they were
3 co-operating, but I have nothing more to say.
4 Q. Thank you. Right. The fifth of the seven sections, the Halba
5 Section, we see that there on the screen at the bottom of the page. And
6 it indicates its headquarters were in the city of Halba, in the north of
7 Lebanon. And it's -- purports to say that it had three squads: The
8 Qabaait Squad --
9 MR. YOUNG: I'm sorry, can we have page 160 now on the screen.
10 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Siniora has a hard copy anyway,
11 Mr. Young.
12 MR. YOUNG: Thank you.
13 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: So you can continue while that's coming up.
14 MR. YOUNG: I'm grateful to you, Mr. President.
15 Q. Do you have that in front of you, page 160, Mr. Prime Minister?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Do you see the document purports to describe that section of
18 security as having three squads: The Qabaait Squad, the Western
19 El-Aarida Squad, and I'm not going to try to pronounce the third squad.
20 Do you see that?
21 A. Qabaait, El-Aarida, El-Aabboudiye, yes, I can see it on the
22 paper.
23 Q. Do I take it from your previous answers that you don't have any
24 personal information to assist in relation to whether or not the squads
25 for that section worked as described?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 48 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 A. Absolutely nothing at all, I have absolutely nothing I can add to
2 this.
3 Q. Right. Well, I'm going to pass over this sixth section because I
4 imagine your answer is the same as the previous ones and I'm going to
5 focus and concentrate in some detail on the seventh section, which is the
6 Beirut section.
7 MR. YOUNG: Can we have page 161 on the screen, please.
8 Q. Do you have that? You're looking at the hard copy, are you?
9 A. [In English] Yes.
10 Q. Thank you. Are you looking at the English or the Arabic version,
11 Mr. Prime Minister? Which version, please?
12 A. [Interpretation] Arabic.
13 Q. Thank you. Well, page 161, what I suggest the document does is
14 it purports to describe the Beirut Section of the Syrian intelligence and
15 suggests that it has five squads and I'm just going to ask you some
16 questions about some of the individual squads. But when you --
17 presumably you had some information in relation to Beirut, given the
18 importance of Beirut. Did you know that the Beirut Section -- Syrian
19 Beirut Section was based or had its headquarters in Western Beirut? It
20 seems to suggest it was in Al Ramla Al Baida?
21 A. Yes, but nothing more than this.
22 Q. Well, just wait for the question and let's see if you can assist
23 the Judges. In relation to Beirut Section, it indicates that its area of
24 operation included greater Beirut City. Given -- what sort of area in
25 terms of distance is that covering, greater Beirut City?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 49 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 A. I don't have precise knowledge. There is the administrative area
2 of Beirut, which is the governorate of Beirut, which is surrounded by the
3 mohafaza or the governorate of Mount Lebanon, and greater Beirut includes
4 as well parts of the governorate of Mount Lebanon and is larger than the
5 administrative governorate of Beirut. As for the details of who is
6 responsible for what and what they're doing, I have no idea.
7 Q. Thank you, Prime Minister. Do I take it from that answer that
8 you did not know that the chief of that section of Syrian security was
9 Staff Brigadier-General Mohammed Khallouf, or did you know him?
10 A. I used to hear his name and I would hear the names of other
11 officers, but I didn't even know what they looked like. Perhaps they
12 were somewhere where I was as well, but I couldn't distinguish one person
13 from another. I couldn't tell you: This is so-and-so. I was not in
14 contact at all with the Syrian security services and who was responsible
15 for what.
16 Q. Mr. Prime Minister, I'm not suggesting you were; I'm just asking
17 you about your information of them. Now, just in relation to the
18 geography of this --
19 A. By names only.
20 Q. In relation to this Beirut Section, the headquarters which is
21 said to be at Al Baida in Western Beirut, may I simply ask this: Is it
22 right to say that the headquarters for this Beirut Section of the Syrian
23 security services in Al Baida is actually quite close to where President
24 Lahoud's presidential palace was?
25 A. President Lahoud?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 50 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 Q. The Baabda Palace of the president. You know where the palace
2 was, don't you?
3 A. Yes. Yes, but there are several kilometres between the two, no
4 less than 10 kilometres that separate Al Ramla Al Baida and Baabda area.
5 Q. Thank you. Thank you. The sections, then, let's look at the
6 sections. The first section, A, of the Beirut Section Squads describes
7 it as being the Al-Hamra Squad and indicates that the chief of the
8 Al-Hamra Squad was Staff Brigadier-General Jamea Jamea, who apparently
9 remained in that post until about the 26th of April, 2005. Would you
10 agree that that information appears to be correct?
11 A. Maybe, maybe. It might be true, but I'm not -- I do not
12 follow-up on these details, who was what and where they were located and
13 where they were moved and did they leave in April or what year, I don't
14 know. I do not have this information. It might be true.
15 Q. Did you personally know Brigadier-General Jamea Jamea?
16 A. There was no connection between myself and Jamea Jamea. Perhaps
17 he was present somewhere where I was present, I happened to be there, but
18 honestly I do not even remember what he looks like.
19 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Young, what do you mean by "know"?
20 MR. YOUNG: Your Honour, know personally, know personally, have
21 any professional dealings with, had met in political or other circles.
22 It appears he has not met him, so I'll leave it there, Your Honour.
23 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Siniora, is that your -- is your
24 response that you have not met, to your recollection, Mr. Jamea Jamea?
25 Do we -- is that implicit in your saying you don't know what he looks
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 51 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 like? I'm sorry, or can't remember what he looks like. There's a
2 difference between "don't know" and "can't remember."
3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't remember.
4 MR. YOUNG:
5 Q. Thank you. Mr. Prime Minister, just this: After all the work
6 and the energy you put into the international impetus in relation to the
7 international investigation, you'll be aware that that name, Jamea Jamea,
8 features in the UNIIIC reports?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. It's right to say that you will also be aware that a number of
11 these -- the security -- the Lebanese-Syrian security apparatus names
12 were in fact listed as being suspected of having knowledge or involvement
13 in the assassination of the Prime Minister, and that's recorded in
14 United Nations IIIC reports, is it not?
15 A. I heard about that.
16 Q. You're not suggesting you haven't read the IIIC reports, are you?
17 A. Maybe, maybe I read something like that, but I do not remember.
18 That doesn't change anything for me.
19 Q. Let's move on to the point my referring this to you. Help us
20 with this. Now, Jamea Jamea's Al-Hamra Squad, the -- how far was that
21 Al-Hamra Squad -- presumably Al-Hamra is an area in Beirut, is it not?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. How far is it from the coastline?
24 A. Perhaps 1.5 kilometres, 2 kilometres, or even half a kilometre,
25 whether you're talking about the beginning of Hamra or the end of Hamra,
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 52 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 but it's approximately that distance.
2 Q. I'm going to suggest that Jamea Jamea's squad HQ was less than a
3 kilometre away from the marina by the St. Georges where the crime scene
4 was; you wouldn't disagree with that description?
5 A. It might be true. I never really measured that distance and I
6 don't remember exactly where was his headquarters in Hamra, Jamea Jamea's
7 headquarters.
8 Q. Thank you. Let me move on. The second of the five sections of
9 the Beirut Section, the second squad was the Airport Squad. I don't need
10 to ask you about that. The third purports to be the Ghobeiry Squad.
11 MR. YOUNG: Can we turn to page 162 on the screen, please.
12 Q. And could you turn, Mr. Prime Minister, to 162. And the -- does
13 it state there that the fourth and fifth squads of that seventh section
14 were the Khalde Squad and the Camps Squad, do you see that?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. I take it you have no personal information about the organization
17 or running of these squads as part of the Beirut Section?
18 A. That's right.
19 Q. Right. Let me move away from squads and sections and ask you
20 this: Do you see in the document it deals with the command structure and
21 the hierarchy of the Syrian command structure and purports to describe
22 it. In the middle of the page do you see it states on 162:
23 "Second: The relation between ranks including the horizontal and
24 vertical overlapping ..."
25 Then it purports to describe the vertical command structure, then
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 53 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 the horizontal one; do you see that?
2 A. I read it.
3 Q. I'm just going to read to you, if I may, just a couple of lines
4 from this and then ask you a question about the reporting of military
5 intelligence and see if you can help the Judges. Under "vertically," do
6 you see it states:
7 "The Chief of the Branch reported ... to the Command of the
8 Military Intelligence Service ..."
9 Now, we know that was Rustom Ghazaleh. No surprise there. You
10 would accept that that's probably accurate, yes?
11 A. Yes, I read that.
12 Q. And under "horizontally," do you see it -- I'll just take you to
13 the last line, it refers to:
14 "... horizontal decision overlapping between the Security and
15 Surveillance Section in Lebanon or any Intelligence Section or any other
16 intelligence branch, except through the command of Military Intelligence
17 Service ..."
18 Then it goes on to say:
19 "Third: The chain of command relates to these posts:
20 "Connection with the higher level: The Section's command in
21 Lebanon reported directly to the Military Intelligence Service."
22 And that would be consistent with what your understanding was of
23 the way Syrian military intelligence operated; yes? Is that fair?
24 A. Let me tell you: All this information that you're discussing
25 with me, first of all, I see this for the first time. Second, as far as
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 54 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 I'm concerned, it's like reading in a textbook, it's like I'm reading in
2 a book organization structure of any organization. The command
3 structure, how is it done? I don't know. I don't know whether it is in
4 practice as it is written here or not. I do not know. You are asking me
5 about things that I have no information about at all. And --
6 Q. Well, forgive me [overlapping speakers] --
7 A. -- I'm not in a position to answer this.
8 Q. Forgive me, let me -- if you wouldn't mind pausing. Can I just
9 take you up on one thing, if I may, Prime Minister. You knew
10 Rustom Ghazaleh, you knew of him and the way he operated very well,
11 didn't you?
12 A. No. The details of his work, no, I didn't know about that. I
13 know the consequences, the results, the results of some of his actions,
14 not all of them. As for how he was working, who he was contacting, what
15 were his sources of information, who he was reporting to, I do not know
16 at all. I don't have this information and I was never in a position to
17 know them, I never asked, there was no possibility for me to gain this
18 information.
19 JUDGE AKOUM: Mr. Young, it seems neither the witness nor we are
20 experts in intelligence, but I find that in the transcript, in page
21 number 52, you asked the witness about what is written under second,
22 vertically, and you said that the chief of branch reported directly to
23 the command of the military intelligence service, and you added that you
24 understand that this is Rustom Ghazaleh. Actually, as we see from these
25 documents that you presented, that Rustom Ghazaleh was not the chief of
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 55 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 the military service; he was the chief of the -- what we call it the
2 branch of Lebanon. It seems that there is somebody who is superior to
3 Rustom Ghazaleh, and what is written here under item: "Second:
4 Vertically," the chief of the branch, that is Rustom Ghazaleh, reported
5 directly to the command of the military intelligence service, somebody
6 superior to him. That's what we can understand from the document
7 presented on the screen.
8 MR. YOUNG: Your Honour, thank you for that comment. Let me ask
9 the witness this:
10 Q. As far as you're concerned, who operating in Lebanon at the
11 material time in February 2005 did you consider to be the senior figure
12 operating as the head of military intelligence?
13 A. All I know is what I heard here and there and that it was
14 Rustom Ghazaleh. As for the details of who reports to who and who
15 receives instructions and orders from whom, I was not aware of any of
16 that.
17 Q. Thank you. Let me move on then.
18 MR. YOUNG: Yes, sorry, could we turn to page 163, please.
19 Q. Mr. Siniora, would you look at page 163. Do you have that in
20 front of you?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Here the document purports to describe the reporting system for
23 the Syrian security services and it indicates how the squads reports were
24 sent to sections, section reports were sent to branch command, and it
25 gives details of the periodization of the reports, indicating that they
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 56 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 were sent periodically every week to the command of the military
2 intelligence service. Again, would you have understood that certainly
3 Mr. Ghazaleh would have been the recipient of these reports if they were
4 significant?
5 A. I do not know, I do not know.
6 Q. Okay. Now, these are the questions -- let me ask you this,
7 sorry, before I leave this document and finish. In terms of the size and
8 scale of the Syrian -- personnel in the Syrian security services, can you
9 assist us the numbers, even approximately, that you understood of
10 personnel were operating by February 2005? Can you help or not?
11 A. [In English] At all [Interpretation] I have no information,
12 absolutely no information regarding this at all.
13 Q. All right. Well, you were prime minister of Lebanon for over --
14 was it over three years. You surely can help us with the numbers of the
15 security personnel as far as the Lebanese were concerned. Help us there.
16 Can you give us an idea, in February 2005, of the extent in terms of
17 numbers of personnel of those who were part of the Lebanese side of the
18 Lebanese-Syrian security apparatus?
19 A. First of all -- and again, I was not prime minister in February
20 of 2005. Second, even after that, do you think that the prime minister
21 would interfere in the details of such section and squad and to try to
22 know the number of personnel even with Lebanese military? Is this the
23 job of the prime minister, to know how many people work in the military
24 intelligence? I would not know and I would not interfere and I'm not
25 even concerned in that. What you're saying, even when I was prime
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 57 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 minister, ask any prime minister: Would you know the details of how many
2 personnel works, let's say, in such squad? They wouldn't be able to
3 answer you. They're not concerned in knowing this. How would you ask me
4 about the Syrians? I have no information at all. There's no need for me
5 to know this information.
6 Q. Thank you.
7 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Siniora, the Lebanese government had a
8 budget; is that correct?
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, we have a budget.
10 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: And does the budget provide for money for
11 military and the Ministry of the Interior under separate budget line
12 items?
13 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Correct.
14 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: And if you go to the separate line items,
15 for example, the Ministry of the Interior or the military, is it further
16 subdivided into things such as personnel costs, that is, salaries,
17 pension, sick leave, on one hand, and then you've got other items such as
18 recurrent expenditure, depreciation, all the things you'd normally expect
19 to see in a budget?
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, but in general terms and not
21 based on specifics of every branch, every police station, no, it does not
22 include this sort of information. There are amounts of money that are
23 allocated for salaries for all the agencies following the Ministry of the
24 Interior. For example, the allocations for health care, let's say. But
25 it's not divided in details, it does not include the details of every
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 58 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 station, of every garrison, for example.
2 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Allow me, I was getting to that. Now, maybe
3 the national budget doesn't break it down into those details, but each
4 subbranch or department has a chief, does it not, like a director-general
5 of health or secretary of the Department of Defence or something like
6 that; is that correct?
7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Definitely.
8 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Good, good. Let's move on. Great. Now,
9 let's go down, and that person would have an internal budget in which
10 they would have a division, would they not, of -- they would have a
11 breakdown of the figures for all the things we talked about a moment ago,
12 personnel, according to different branches within that department and the
13 costs of buying furniture or fuel for motor vehicles, stationery,
14 whatever, someone would have that information in each of those
15 departments; correct?
16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. This information does exist,
17 but again in general terms but not in --
18 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Thank you. The information exists. So to
19 answer Mr. Young's question, the information is there if someone wishes
20 to find out, for example, how many soldiers there are in the Lebanese
21 army or how many personnel there are employed in its military
22 intelligence branch. That information is available that is --
23 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Yes. Yes.
24 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: The minister of defence would readily have
25 that information, wouldn't he or she?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 59 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] If they were to be asked, yes.
2 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Likewise with civilian intelligence, the
3 ministry responsible for that would also have the budget figure for the
4 number of offices and agents, so to speak, who are operating on behalf of
5 Lebanon?
6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.
7 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: You're saying that in your role as prime
8 minister you wouldn't have that specific information at your fingertips
9 unless you had delved or asked questions or tried to find it.
10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's right.
11 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: As the minister for finance, did you have a
12 role in overseeing the budget of every department before it was approved
13 by the Council of Ministers? Were there budget subcommittees where
14 ministers came forward with proposals for spending increases and the
15 budget expenditure review committee would say: No, we can't afford it
16 this year, and they would come back with different items and you would
17 have battles between ministers defending their turf, so to speak?
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's right. However, the
19 minister of finance does not replace each minister in their ministry and
20 their departments. So the minister would deal with things overall but
21 not delve into the details of whether this station needs this or needs
22 that. No, they would not interfere into such specifics and details,
23 otherwise he would become the minister of interior.
24 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: But as a competent minister of finance,
25 you'd have to have an overall view of the more significant things going
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 60 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 on in each of those departments, budget-wise, without going, as you've
2 just suggested, to the level of micromanagement?
3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes.
4 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Young.
5 MR. YOUNG: Your Honours, thank you very much.
6 Q. Just before moving away from this topic about reporting, I have
7 two other discrete questions. It's in relation to the president and the
8 prime minister. Did -- in -- you were prime minister for many years. In
9 2005, would you have expected any of the high-level members of the
10 Lebanese military to have reported directly to the prime minister? If
11 so, who?
12 A. There is a minister of interior and a minister of defence.
13 Therefore, it's not always acceptable for the prime minister to bypass
14 these two relevant ministers. The prime minister would meet with the
15 minister of defence in the presence of the Commander-in-Chief of the army
16 or with the minister of interior with the presence of the
17 director-general of Internal Security Forces and ask for information, the
18 information that he or she requests. There are some reports that are
19 submitted to the prime minister as they are submitted to the minister of
20 defence or the minister of interior, yes.
21 Q. Mr. Prime Minister, thank you very much for that answer. So I
22 take it this -- that the normal practice - I think we agree - the normal
23 practice would be this: Those reporting to the prime minister, Mr. Omar
24 Karami, for example, may have been Abdel-Rahim Mourad, the minister of
25 defence, or Mr. Suleiman Frangieh, the minister of interior. Is that who
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 61 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 you would expect to be immediately reporting to a prime minister?
2 A. I suppose so.
3 Q. And just to get the structure and the hierarchy right, would you
4 expect the minister of defence, Mr. Mourad, to have the chief of the
5 Lebanese army, Mr. Suleiman, to report to him?
6 A. Yes, I suppose so.
7 Q. And going down the chain, individuals such as General Raymond
8 Azar, chief of the Lebanese intelligence, and Mustafa Hamdan, chief of
9 Presidential Guard Brigade, you would have expected them to report to
10 Michel Suleiman?
11 A. I think so.
12 Q. Thank you. And equally in relation to the Ministry of the
13 Interior, would you have expected Major-General Ali Hajj, the head --
14 director-general of the Internal Security Forces, and Jamil Sayyed,
15 general-director of Sûreté Générale, to report to the minister of
16 interior, Suleiman Frangieh; is that right?
17 A. I think so, I think so. It's supposed to -- they're supposed to
18 report to them. Whether they tell him everything or not, that's a
19 different topic. What do they report to them --
20 Q. Forgive me --
21 A. -- I do not know. Perhaps they're giving them false information
22 or something correct or not the entirety of the information.
23 Q. Forgive me, Mr. Prime Minister, if you would just answer the
24 question. I'm just trying to set up the structure. I'm not asking you
25 about what information they may or may not have received. But I want to
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 62 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 ask you about this --
2 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Young, can you just look on the
3 transcript. It looks like we missed something in the last question.
4 MR. YOUNG: Certainly --
5 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Can you just see -- just repeat whatever you
6 missed.
7 And, Mr. Siniora, if you can look on the transcript too, please.
8 MR. YOUNG: Mr. President, I don't think there's anything
9 significant I would need to add to the transcript. Thank you.
10 Q. Mr. Siniora, you said something of interest to me. I'm asking
11 these questions for information and you've come here as a witness for
12 Lebanon to assist the Court and to help in the search for the truth. I
13 just have some basic questions. You explained to the learned Judges that
14 sometimes the prime minister might be copied in on reports that were
15 directed more to lower-level figures, such as the minister of defence or
16 the minister of interior; is that right?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. So what you're saying is you wouldn't normally -- it may happen
19 that the prime minister might receive a document from a military chief,
20 but normally you wouldn't be a direct route between the general and the
21 prime minister, that wouldn't happen as a matter of course; is that what
22 you're saying?
23 A. Normally the minister of defence should be informed, due to the
24 hierarchy -- so he should be informed at the same time as the prime
25 minister. Normally this is the normal course of action in the
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 63 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 administration and hierarchy.
2 Q. Mr. Prime Minister, thank you for that answer. Let me -- this
3 brings me on to another thing -- another question. The -- was the
4 situation in terms of military reporting from the military chiefs
5 different when it concerned the president of Lebanon as opposed to the
6 prime minister of Lebanon? In other words, were there some military
7 chiefs that, in fact, reported not through others but directly to the
8 president?
9 A. I cannot answer specifically whether everything that is reported
10 to the president of the republic is the same that is reported to the
11 prime minister. I cannot confirm that.
12 Q. That wasn't my question with respect to you, Prime Minister. My
13 question wasn't what the content was. My question was: To your
14 knowledge, did some of the military chiefs have a direct channel of
15 communication to the president, as opposed to the prime minister?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Which military chiefs would have that direct channel to the
18 president, such as President Emile Lahoud?
19 A. I think the head of the army, the head of intelligence services,
20 the head of general security, yes, they have direct contact with the
21 president of the republic.
22 Q. And as for the chief of the Lebanese military intelligence,
23 Raymond Azar, you would have expected him also to have a direct channel
24 of communication, if need be, to the president; do you agree?
25 A. Yes.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 64 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 Q. Thank you. One last slightly different topic -- question on this
2 topic --
3 JUDGE AKOUM: Before you move on --
4 MR. YOUNG: Sorry.
5 JUDGE AKOUM: -- on this topic.
6 [Interpretation] What about the head of the Presidential Guard?
7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, of course, he reports directly
8 to him, of course, naturally. The head of the Presidential Guard,
9 definitely. But the head of general security, the head of intelligence,
10 yes, they had direct contacts with the president of the republic.
11 JUDGE AKOUM: [Interpretation] Still in the same context, the
12 head -- the general -- the director-general of the state security is --
13 does he report to the prime minister?
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In principle, yes, but there are
15 also contacts with the president of the republic.
16 MR. YOUNG: Your Honour, thank you very much indeed for these
17 questions.
18 Q. Yes, the second and final topic on this point is simply this:
19 It's to do with security clearance. Prime Minister, when you became
20 prime minister in 2005 to 2009, I think it was, did you on gaining the
21 rank or the appointment of prime minister, did you take on a certain
22 security clearance level in Lebanon? Was there a security clearance
23 system operating, for example, for the prime minister?
24 A. What do you mean by this "security clearance," by this sort of
25 "security authorization" is the translation that came through.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 65 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 Q. As prime minister, is there any category of document,
2 confidential or sensitive document, that you would have expected not to
3 have seen if it was relevant; or would you have expected as prime
4 minister to have seen any significant, relevant, sensitive document if it
5 was of importance to Lebanon and its security?
6 A. I cannot confirm that I was getting all the information that
7 could have come out of the intelligence directorate or from general
8 security.
9 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: But, Mr. Siniora, if you as the prime
10 minister had asked to see the documents, I accept that you may not have
11 known they existed, but if you had, so to speak, done a raid or had
12 insisted on seeing a complete file of every document at whatever level of
13 security classification, did you have the right to do so as the prime
14 minister? Normally one would expect that you would. We're just asking
15 if that was the situation in Lebanon when you were the prime minister.
16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In principle, yes. But in
17 practice, from time to time we would notice that there were -- there was
18 information that was being held from the prime minister.
19 MR. YOUNG: Mr. President, thank you.
20 Q. So you're saying from time to time you -- are you saying you --
21 you've experienced this, that there were problems where material you
22 would have expected to see as prime minister wasn't put before you; is
23 that what you're saying?
24 A. Yes, yes.
25 Q. Thank you. Mr. Prime Minister, let me ask you this: Are you
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 66 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 saying, therefore, there wasn't any official written or drafted protocol
2 in relation to security clearance at the level of prime minister; is that
3 what you're saying? There was just a convention or a practice that you
4 expected to operate and that you expected to see things, but there was no
5 written protocol for that?
6 A. Literally a protocol, no, there isn't one. And this information
7 can be on paper or can be oral. Yes, there was information that was not
8 revealed to the prime minister.
9 Q. What sort of category of information might that have been? Just
10 the category or general description of material that may have been held
11 back from the prime minister, because I'm going to go on to ask you
12 whether the president had a different level of security clearance, if we
13 can call it that. So what was the description of the documents or
14 category of documents that you yourself experienced was not provided to
15 prime minister?
16 A. I shall recall a well-known episode in Lebanon. It happened at
17 the Lebanese Parliament when the prime minister stood up and said before
18 Parliament and before the Speaker, "Do you know, Speaker, that your
19 telephone calls and my telephone calls are being tapped?" This was quite
20 a shock to Prime Minister Hariri when he heard this.
21 Q. Thank you. In relation to the president, as a matter of practice
22 in 2005, would you have expected President Emile Lahoud to have had
23 greater access to sensitive documents than Omar Karami; if so, which
24 category of documents?
25 A. Security-related documents. Other documents I don't know.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 67 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 Perhaps there were from time to time information about something that was
2 known to the president of the republic but not known to the prime
3 minister.
4 Q. When you were prime minister for these three or four years that
5 you were prime minister, Mr. Siniora, did you expect to see any
6 high-level, sensitive document that would have been given or provided to
7 the president? Would you have expected the same access to information?
8 A. In principle, yes.
9 Q. But in practice, are you saying that in February 2005 President
10 Lahoud appeared to you to have had access to greater channels of
11 communication with the security services than Mr. Omar Karami; is that
12 right?
13 A. Yes, that's correct.
14 Q. Right. I'm going to move on to a different topic. I'm going to
15 deal before I come on to the generals, forgive me for the length of time
16 this is taking, I'm sure it's my fault, can I --
17 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Young, that request for assistance sent
18 by --
19 MR. YOUNG: Yes.
20 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: -- Mr. Brammertz to the Syrians and the
21 responses, I assume you want an exhibit number for that and there will be
22 no objection from the Prosecution.
23 That will be Exhibit 5D128. The ERN range I have is from --
24 MR. YOUNG: Your Honour, the ERN range is 10012150 to 10012169.
25 And thank you, Your Honour, I omitted to ask for that to be made an
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 68 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 exhibit. I apologize.
2 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: No, I should have been more attentive, but
3 can you just give a description of the first page of the document which I
4 seem to have mislaid --
5 MR. YOUNG: Yes, certainly --
6 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: -- and a general description.
7 MR. YOUNG: Yes. This exhibit -- the first page of this exhibit
8 is a letter from the minister of foreign affairs from the Syrian Arabic
9 Republic, Walid El-Moallem to Mr. Serge Brammertz, Commissioner of the --
10 Chairman of the UNIIIC. It's dated the 25th of April, 2006, and it
11 attaches as a document a document from the Special Syrian Judicial
12 Commission which I understand is a response from a request for
13 assistance.
14 [Trial Chamber confers]
15 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: I'm sorry to have to do this to you, but we
16 can only take a one-hour lunch break today, so it will be a mad dash to
17 wherever you can obtain food. We're adjourning for one hour,
18 Mr. Siniora. We hope that you have time for a good lunch.
19 --- Luncheon recess taken at 1.13 p.m.
20 --- On resuming at 2.18 p.m.
21 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: All right. Defence counsel, Mr. Young,
22 please resume your questioning of Mr. Siniora.
23 Mr. Siniora, we hope that you had a lunch that was to your
24 satisfaction, but I don't know what your standards are.
25 Mr. Young.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 69 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 MR. YOUNG: Your Honour, thank you very much.
2 Q. Mr. Siniora, just to carry on --
3 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Or your expectations, more to the point.
4 Mr. Young.
5 MR. YOUNG: Thank you.
6 Q. I will try and complete my questions before we finish today.
7 Now, Mr. Rustom Ghazaleh, I'm going to ask you a few questions about
8 Mr. Ghazaleh before my second topic, which is to do with the three
9 generals. In relation to Mr. Ghazaleh, we know this: It's fair to say
10 that you understand in 2002 he took over from Ghazi Kanaan as the head of
11 the military intelligence. That's right, isn't it?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Thank you. And from 2002 until 2004, were you - forgive me for
14 asking this - were you a minister in that time, in that period, from 2002
15 to 2004?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. And given his position and given your position, would it have
18 been the case that from time to time you may have actually met
19 Mr. Ghazaleh in person?
20 A. Yes, I would see him sometimes when I would be visiting President
21 Hariri at his residence and by chance I would come across him. But there
22 were absolutely no direct relations between us.
23 Q. No. Thank you. I -- is it fair to say -- I imagine that most of
24 what you know of Mr. Ghazaleh is what you've heard from others about his
25 activities; is that fair?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 70 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 A. Yes, that is true.
2 Q. Now, Mr. Prime Minister, you've given a clear account, a clear,
3 helpful account, if I may say, about the interfering, manipulating,
4 bullying security -- Syrian security services, of which Mr. Ghazaleh was
5 a part. In your opinion, did he show any respect to the country of
6 Lebanon?
7 A. I cannot answer and tell you what's within every person. If this
8 is to be confined to the terms we used to hear, that's one thing. As for
9 the conduct that we were witnessing, this is a very different thing.
10 Q. And the conduct was nothing less than criminal in your view;
11 that's clear, isn't it?
12 A. His conduct with regard to certain situations was not pleasant,
13 was not beneficial to us as Lebanese, of course. That conduct was not
14 proper and it wasn't right.
15 Q. Mr. Prime Minister, I'm grateful. It's fair to say that
16 nominally or even maybe in practice he was described as being an agent or
17 a representative of Syria. But is it right to say this, that you cannot
18 know whether on any given action or incident he was responsible for he
19 was acting in the capacity of an agent or whether he was acting
20 independently, on his own initiative? That's not something that you can
21 comment on, is it?
22 A. I would tend to believe that there were no personal hostilities.
23 I don't think there were personal issues. Therefore, this conduct was
24 not dictated by personal resentment. But possibly a conduct built on
25 orders, instructions, on a political situation. I don't think it was
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 71 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 personal, I don't think so at all. But I don't know. God knows.
2 Q. Thank you. You don't know. Mr. Siniora, I'm not asking you
3 about motivation. It's fair to say you also don't know whether or not he
4 was acting as an agent when he did what he did or whether he was possibly
5 acting independently, on his own initiative; you can't know that, can
6 you?
7 A. Somebody like me, in my position, cannot deal with every
8 situation subjectively. It has to be -- or cannot act in a situation in
9 a personal manner. It must be built and based on instructions coming
10 from high above.
11 THE INTERPRETER: Interpreter corrects it: Somebody in his
12 position.
13 MR. YOUNG:
14 Q. Is it fair to say that's your -- that's what you have speculated
15 about the case. You can't know for sure that in everything he does he
16 was acting on instructions. You simply can't know; is that fair?
17 A. Yes, that is fair. It is built on my understanding and my
18 analysis of the situation.
19 Q. Thank you. Let me be clear about Mr. Ghazaleh. You see, I
20 suggest it's fair to describe him as acting as a kind of a mafia boss
21 running, possibly part time, his own empire, criminal empire, from Anjar.
22 Is that a fair description, "a mafia boss"?
23 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: There's several descriptions there,
24 Mr. Young, you've got mafia boss, criminal empire, Anjar.
25 MR. YOUNG: I think Mr. Siniora gets the gist.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 72 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 Q. What's your response?
2 A. I'm not able to answer. I have no information about this. But
3 he was responsible, he was in charge, and he had people above him giving
4 him instructions. He had a bit of margin of manoeuvre that may have
5 served his own interests or other things, yes, but the -- that he should
6 be a mafia boss, I can't call him that way. The way he was behaving
7 looked like he was a mafia boss, but I cannot say that he was a mafia
8 boss.
9 Q. May I make it clear, I'm not suggesting he was part of the Cosa
10 Nostra, but you accept that he was behaving like he looked like a mafia
11 boss. You accept that. Now, as to his reputation, that's certainly how
12 he was perceived, was it not, in Lebanon, in February 2005, acting in a
13 criminal manner. That's generally how he was perceived in the Lebanese
14 government?
15 A. Yes. This perception, this impression that a number of Lebanese
16 had of him is quite close to that kind of description sometimes.
17 Q. Now, Mr. Ghazaleh -- forgive me, Mr. Siniora, I do apologize.
18 A. Are you apologizing to him?
19 Q. Let me be clear, I'm apologizing to you.
20 Mr. Siniora, I'm going to ask you about banking now. Now, you'll
21 be able to help us here because you were the finance minister. Is it
22 right to say that Lebanon in 2005 had a large private banking sector?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Is it fair to say there were perhaps over 70 significantly sized
25 private banks in February 2005?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 73 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 A. Maybe, yes, a little bit less or a little bit more, but yeah,
2 approximately yes, that was the number.
3 Q. You would have been deeply concerned when in 2003 the El-Madina
4 scandal broke for the reputation of the Lebanese economy and financial
5 reputation, wouldn't you?
6 A. Correct.
7 Q. Just very briefly, in that scandal it was alleged, was it not,
8 that possibly over $1 billion US was said to have been embezzled through
9 that bank, the El-Madina Bank?
10 A. I do not recall at all that a figure like that had been
11 mentioned. Some figures were mentioned such as $300 million. This is
12 the figure that I remember was mentioned in this whole story.
13 Q. And in relation to El-Madina, it's right to say that there were
14 many rumours speculating at the time or many rumours circulating at the
15 time, I should say, in 2003/2004, that one of the beneficiaries of the
16 embezzlement was Mr. Rustom Ghazaleh to the tune of many millions of
17 dollars. You've heard these rumours, no doubt?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Did you know the Koleilat family, one of whom was implicated at
20 the centre of the fraud?
21 A. I do not know anyone from this family except by name. I have
22 never met any member of that family.
23 Q. May I make it clear, I'm not suggesting you have any personal
24 connection with them whatsoever, but you know that somebody by the name
25 of Rana Koleilat was at the centre of the scandal allegedly; is that
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 74 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 right?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. And is the Koleilat family a well-known family in Beirut or in
4 Lebanon?
5 A. Yes, it's a known family.
6 Q. Can you help me with this: You would also be aware of the name
7 Ibrahim Koleilat who's associated with as being a founder of the
8 Al-Murabitoon; is that right?
9 A. Yes, however, this dates back to 1975 or 1976, we are talking
10 about 40 years ago. Ibrahim Koleilat disappeared I think -- I think he
11 was still alive. He is still alive, he lives outside of Lebanon, but he
12 has absolutely no role from the year 1975 approximately up until this
13 day. He has absolutely no role to play, no influence at all, with the
14 exception of the name Al-Murabitoon which is a group that he headed, that
15 Ibrahim Koleilat headed. But they do not have any political weight and
16 they're not really a prominent party in Lebanon.
17 Q. Forgive me, Mr. Siniora, I just have one question on this and
18 I'll move on. I'm conscious of the time. The only question I ask about
19 the family is this: To your knowledge, having some knowledge of the
20 family, is the Ibrahim Koleilat who was connected to the Al-Murabitoon in
21 any way connected to the Koleilats who were at the centre of the
22 El-Madina scandal?
23 A. For the first time I hear this indication, this insinuation that
24 Ibrahim Koleilat because he's from the Koleilat family has any relations
25 with Rana Koleilat. I had never heard that before and I don't see any
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 75 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 connection. Anyway, this is what you are saying.
2 Q. Right. Just final -- some final questions and I'll move on in
3 relation to the security services. Now, you've told us in some detail
4 about how they effectively infiltrated and had a pervasive effect upon
5 Lebanon and its institutions. That being the case, would the security
6 services have had a very keen interest in the telecommunications network
7 in Beirut?
8 A. Of course, yes.
9 JUDGE AKOUM: [Interpretation] Before you continue, Mr. Young.
10 He asked you about the embezzlement of $1 billion in El-Madina
11 Bank. You corrected the figure and mentioned $300 million. Weren't the
12 amounts of money that belonged to the clients, weren't they returned to
13 their rightful owners? Weren't they recovered by their rightful owners?
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] None of the depositors lost any
15 cent in El-Madina Bank. All of the depositors recovered their money.
16 The amounts that were mentioned as being squandered and embezzled, it was
17 referred that it was transferred by Abu Ayyash family to El-Madina Bank
18 and they were spent here and there and amounts of money were given to X
19 and Y and so and so. These were all information that were relayed and
20 circulated in the press. Even up until this day this is mentioned in
21 some magazines. But I would like to say that no depositor lost any cent
22 from El-Madina Bank at all.
23 MR. YOUNG: Thank you.
24 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: In what sense were you using the word
25 "embezzlement"? As a technical legal sense of a conversion before it
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 76 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 gets to the rightful owner or a dispossession?
2 MR YOUNG: Simply --
3 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Withholding assets for the purposes of
4 conversion? It's quite a technical legal term as opposed to defrauding
5 or stealing or swindling.
6 MR. YOUNG: With respect, Mr. President, there are many ways one
7 could describe the conduct. It's been described as criminal fraud,
8 theft, embezzlement, the channelling of illicit moneys, money laundering.
9 I just use that as a generic term. It wasn't any particular reason for
10 the use of "embezzlement."
11 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Are we talking about an act of dishonesty in
12 relation to the money?
13 MR. YOUNG: Yes.
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Abuse of trust.
15 MR. YOUNG: Thank you.
16 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: That is embezzlement.
17 Thank you, Mr. Siniora, that's one of the elements of the
18 technical sense of or meaning of "embezzlement."
19 MR. YOUNG: I'm grateful.
20 Q. Before that exchange, Mr. Siniora, I think you agreed with me
21 that telecommunications would also have been an institution or an
22 organization that would have been of keen interest to the security
23 apparatus. The reason for that, can I suggest - and we probably agree on
24 this - is that telecommunications is the life blood of intelligence in
25 many ways, isn't it?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 77 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 A. Definitely, this is a very important means.
2 Q. I'm not sure, Mr. Siniora, how the interpreters will deal with
3 this English expression, but to the security services, telecommunications
4 would have been their bread and butter; is that fair? If that
5 translates.
6 A. I think so. I think so.
7 Q. Yes. This is not, with respect, controversial. What I'm
8 suggesting is given the description of the conduct they perpetrated in
9 relation to threats, fabrications, and so forth, presumably, therefore,
10 you would not be surprised if the security services would have and did
11 infiltrate the telecommunications companies in Beirut, such as Alfa and
12 MTC?
13 A. Maybe.
14 Q. As a minister in the period 2002 to 2004, when you were having
15 these continual and increasing problems with the security apparatus, were
16 there ever occasions where the security services' attention towards the
17 telecom companies was causing concern to you, the ministers?
18 A. I mentioned this morning an example of the illegal tapping that
19 targeted the Prime Minister and the Speaker of Parliament. This was
20 mentioned in the minutes of a parliamentary session. This is just an
21 example.
22 Q. Thank you. Was it uncovered where the tapping had come from in
23 terms of the practicalities of it? Was it a case that the tapping had
24 occurred through the use of one of the telecom companies? Or in another
25 way?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 78 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 A. In reality, either as an individual or as a minister of finance
2 at the time, I did not have the possibility in one way or another -- I
3 did not have the possibility to learn that information.
4 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Young.
5 MR. YOUNG: Sorry.
6 JUDGE BRAIDY: [Interpretation] Mr. Prime Minister, as you
7 mentioned about the issue of tapping, was it tapping that targeted
8 land-lines or was it also applied to mobile telephone lines? When you
9 talked about listening in on Prime Minister Hariri, was that being done
10 on land-lines or mobile lines?
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] First of all, it applied on
12 land-lines, but nothing prevents it from being also applied on mobile
13 lines. But Prime Minister Hariri, when he mentioned that, he did not
14 specify at Parliament whether that was limited to land-lines or whether
15 it also included mobile lines.
16 JUDGE BRAIDY: [Interpretation] Was it discussed, for example, if
17 this tapping was being done technically?
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I remember sometimes during
19 bilateral meetings between Prime Minister Hariri and myself, he was
20 always keen on saying that there is a possibility that tapping operations
21 were being conducted. But the details and the technicalities, I cannot
22 answer for that, I cannot say how that was happening. But definitely
23 there were tools and equipment that were being used to help achieve that.
24 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: How do you know that?
25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] When the Prime Minister stands and
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 79 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 says publicly that there is tapping, what do you want me to say, other
2 than that?
3 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: I was asking you about the tools and
4 equipment. You said:
5 "But definitely there were tools and equipment that were being
6 used to help achieve that."
7 Other than Mr. Hariri himself saying that that was his suspicion
8 or belief, how do you know that?
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] How can there be tapping without
10 specific equipment used for that?
11 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: I think you can do better than that,
12 Mr. Siniora. Of course you need equipment to engage in tapping or
13 surveillance, but how do you know it was occurring and that -- and of
14 course that is -- implicit in the fact that it is occurring is that the
15 equipment is there. Do you have any other information, apart from
16 Mr. Hariri saying that was his -- that that was his suspicion or his
17 belief?
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The information regarding specific
19 equipment or tool, no, I don't have information about that. I'm not in a
20 position to gain knowledge of this equipment that are present at the
21 Ministry of Telecommunications to make sure whether this equipment
22 existed or not. But when the head of cabinet says publicly before
23 Parliament something like that and when the Speaker of Parliament also
24 confirms that on the basis of that information and says that he is
25 surprised and reacts to that, that means that this is something that
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 80 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 truly existed.
2 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: When you were the head of cabinet, in the
3 same position as Mr. Hariri sometime later, did you have the same
4 suspicion or belief that your phones were being monitored or tapped? And
5 also when you were minister for finance, did you have that same suspicion
6 or belief?
7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In my assessment, when I was
8 minister of finance, yes, it's possible, it's possible that they were
9 using the same procedures. But in all cases and given the nature of my
10 work, what I say on the phone and in closed rooms and publicly is one and
11 the same, it's the same. So if they want to monitor and listen-in on
12 that, let them do that. That's not something that would affect me and
13 it's not a concern for me. When I was prime minister, I was keen on
14 giving clear instructions that there shouldn't be any monitoring or
15 tapping unless pursuant to the laws that regulate that.
16 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Did you think that your phone --
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In addition to that, if someone is
18 doing something illegally, then I cannot say that this is impossible.
19 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: When you were the prime minister, did you
20 believe or think or have reason to believe that your phone was being
21 monitored? Mobile? Land-line? Home? Work? Personal?
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't think so. I don't think
23 so. And despite that, even if it was, that would not have hurt me or
24 affected me.
25 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Did you never use a secure telephone when
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 81 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 you were the prime minister to talk to someone? An encrypted phone?
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Once someone came to me with an
3 encrypted phone but I never used it.
4 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Are you saying you never took any
5 precautions in what you said at any time when you were the prime minister
6 when you were using any type of telephone?
7 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I never used an encrypted phone.
8 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: When I say "precautions," that includes in
9 what you said. Were you careful in what you said on the phone, for fear
10 that someone could have overheard it?
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's a different matter. Of
12 course, as a person in charge, I was always trying and I was always
13 careful with what I would say.
14 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Which gets us to the point: Were you more
15 cautious in what you said on the telephone because of your suspicion that
16 what you were saying was being monitored?
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That's right, that's right.
18 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: I think we're there, Mr. Young.
19 MR. YOUNG: Thank you.
20 Q. Just two final questions before I move on to the -- my last
21 topic. To your knowledge, at that time, between 2002 and 2004, did the
22 military or intelligence services have people working, either covertly or
23 not, at Alfa or MTC, the telecommunications companies?
24 A. Maybe, maybe that's right.
25 Q. Given their obvious and pressing need to have a close control
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 82 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 over communications or understanding of communications, it wouldn't
2 surprise you in the least if they had somebody working at the phone
3 companies. I think we agree, do you?
4 A. Maybe they were communicating with employees there in order to
5 obtain or be able to monitor or maybe they installed equipment in the two
6 companies, maybe, maybe, that might be right.
7 Q. Thank you. Indeed, given their capacity to manipulate laws,
8 politicians, and so forth, it wouldn't surprise you in the least if
9 they -- the security services had manipulated information from the
10 telecommunications companies? You agree?
11 A. [In English] Manipulated information, [Interpretation] what do
12 you mean by that?
13 Q. Well, you've told us earlier today in a clear and cogent account
14 that they had the capacity to fabricate -- fabricate in order to assist
15 their ends. If they wanted to alter information, it wouldn't be beyond
16 their technical capacity to affect telecommunications data, would it?
17 A. No, I don't know anything of the sort at all. Tapping is one
18 thing, but manipulating phone calls, that's different and I don't have
19 any information and I'm not in a position to make an opinion on that.
20 Q. Thank you. I'll move on. So my second and final topic,
21 Mr. Prime Minister, is this: I'm now going to ask you some questions
22 about the Generals Hajj, Azar, and then I'm going to finish on General
23 Mustafa Hamdan. Before I do, I'm going to ask you some general overview
24 questions on the Lebanese military capability in the years 2002 to 2005.
25 So you would have been a minister between 2002 to 2004.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 83 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 Can you give the Court an idea of the size of the number of
2 troops of the military army, combat troops, in Lebanon in that period,
3 2002 to 2004, for example?
4 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Just a clarification, Mr. Young, are you
5 referring to the total, which is reserves; or only those on active duty?
6 MR. YOUNG: I'm hoping to get an overview of the combat troops,
7 not the reserves, which I imagine is a much smaller figure.
8 Q. Can you help, give us some idea of the numbers, as you were a
9 minister in the government, an idea of the size of the force?
10 A. Let me here say something and be clear. Of course the assessment
11 at the time was around 65.000 soldiers, but the army command has the
12 possibility to ask for volunteers and it is through the budget, it's
13 included in the budget, especially that sometimes they needed extra staff
14 and they recruited volunteers. And this is included in the budget. So,
15 for example, if someone retires, a military man retires, they can, with
16 the same salary, recruit two people to replace him with the same salary.
17 So there is a possibility that the figures increase without this
18 affecting the allocations, the money allocated for them.
19 Q. Thank you. So certainly over 40.000, over 50.000 possibly. Now,
20 in terms of where they were, is it right --
21 A. Yes, yes, more than 50.000.
22 Q. Thank you. Just very briefly, in terms of where they were based,
23 where were -- is it fair to say the main garrisons for the Lebanese
24 military were -- one was in the south, one in the north, one in Mount
25 Lebanon, another in Beqaa, and one in the Beirut region; would that be
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 84 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 about right?
2 A. You are asking me to give you military information, military
3 information that I do not possess, where the troops were located. I know
4 that there are certain barracks and this is well-known. How many troops
5 are there in this barrack or garrison, where are they moved from one
6 location to the other, this is something that I do not know.
7 Q. Well, to make it clear, I don't press you on it. Just to see if
8 you can assist.
9 Did the Syrian -- did the Lebanese military ever share garrisons
10 with the Syrian armed forces?
11 A. No, no, I don't think so at all. The army barracks, the
12 military -- Lebanese army barracks are for the Lebanese army. They are
13 not to be used also by the Syrian army.
14 Q. Now, Mr. Siniora, moving on to different aspects of the military.
15 If you did not have this knowledge when you were finance minister in 2002
16 to 2004, I'm suggesting you would have known something about this when
17 you became prime minister for four years and that is this: That Lebanon
18 in the years 2002 to 2005 possessed four separate sets of special forces
19 in Lebanon? You agree?
20 A. I do not know. Seriously, I do not know.
21 Q. Well, let me help you. I'm going to suggest one set of special
22 forces was a commando regiment with the army. The second set was
23 airborne regiment with the air force. And then there were two other sets
24 of special forces and these are the ones I want to ask you about. First
25 of all, you surely must have heard that the Internal Security Forces had
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 85 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 a special forces regiment called the Panthers; you must know of that,
2 surely?
3 A. Yes, I've -- I'm aware of these names, but my information is
4 limited to knowing that these regiments or this -- these brigades really
5 exist, and more than that I do not know. And again, it's not my mission
6 to ask questions about that.
7 Q. I entirely accept your knowledge will be very limited, but it's
8 my role to ask you questions. Now, you've accepted that you knew that
9 that brigade existed. Perhaps you didn't know much about it, but the
10 Panthers were sometimes called Al-Fouhoud; is that correct?
11 A. I knew of their existence.
12 Q. And to give the learned Judges some idea of this, this was a
13 special -- elite special forces unit that was designated to the ISF
14 alone, wasn't it?
15 A. That's right.
16 Q. And it's right to say that that force existed in February 2005?
17 A. Yes, that's right.
18 Q. And who would the special forces regiment have reported to?
19 Would it have been to the head of the ISF at the time, in February 2005?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. That would have been General Ali Hajj?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Other than that, can you help the learned Judges with any idea of
24 that force's capability, presence, whereabouts, or anything else about
25 the size of it? Can you give us any assistance?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 86 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 A. I only know of their existence.
2 Q. Thank you. I will move on.
3 The -- I'm going to ask you about one of the other four special
4 forces, I suggest, the Navy Seals. Now, they were -- you're aware that
5 they existed as a regiment as effectively marine commandos?
6 A. Yes, the Navy Seals, yes.
7 Q. Just one or two questions on them, then I'll move on. Presumably
8 being Navy Seals, would their garrison or their base have been by the
9 sea?
10 A. I think so, yes. Where would the marine commandos be, other than
11 near the sea?
12 Q. It wasn't a trick question. Can I suggest it was Byblos, was it
13 Byblos in 2005, to your knowledge, or can you not say?
14 A. Honestly, I do not know.
15 Q. Right. I'm going to move on.
16 Let me come to the first of the three generals I'm going to
17 question you on, General Ali Hajj. Was he a general of the military that
18 you had regular dealings with or somebody you met on an occasional basis?
19 A. When I first met him, he was head of the company that was in
20 charge of the protection of Prime Minister Hariri. And therefore, I saw
21 him, either at the Serail in passing or at the residence of Prime
22 Minister Hariri, also in passing, or he would be accompanying Prime
23 Minister Hariri on some of his visits but also fleetingly. So I barely,
24 barely spoke to him and we greeted one another.
25 Q. Thank you. Mr. Siniora, is it right to say he was promoted to
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 87 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 the head of the ISF -- was it in November of 2004, to your knowledge?
2 A. I think that he was promoted, but I can't remember exactly which
3 month. Yes, he was promoted and then he became responsible for the ISF.
4 And of course this is an information that one can find in any newspaper
5 and find out the date, but I don't remember exactly when.
6 Q. Can you help us, as you were minister in 2004, as to who was
7 responsible for General Hajj's promotion to that new post? Who supported
8 his promotion?
9 A. According to what I used to hear, the Syrian security system
10 supported his promotion to this office.
11 Q. On the 14th of February, 2005, Mr. Siniora, you're aware that it
12 was General Hajj who became involved with the supervision over the crime
13 scene. That's something you would be aware of? As the head of the ISF,
14 that's something he got involved with, wasn't it?
15 A. Honestly, I don't know who was in charge of the crime scene
16 because the crime scene was manipulated and it was tampered with, but I
17 don't know who was in charge. He was supposed to be in charge. The
18 person in charge would have allowed this tampering with the crime scene,
19 as happened. In any case, maybe it was him.
20 Q. Why was the general, to your knowledge, removed from his post in
21 April 2005, from what you understood?
22 A. The government that was in charge at the time is the one who
23 accepted the resignation of these officers, as a result as well of the
24 demands -- the popular demands of people who were demonstrating on a
25 daily basis and who were pointing an accusing finger at these officers,
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 88 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 accusing them of being involved in this crime.
2 Q. Let me move on to General Azar, please. Now, again, did you know
3 him in a similar fashion, as somebody you may see from time to time, when
4 you were minister in the period, for example, 2002 to 2004?
5 A. Yes, of course, I know he existed, I saw him a couple of times,
6 but we didn't even greet each other.
7 Q. He was the head of military intelligence and would have been the
8 counterpart to Rustom Ghazaleh; is that fair?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Now, if you cannot help, please say you don't have the
11 information. Do you have any idea at all, Mr. Siniora, as to whether or
12 not the military intelligence section that General Azar presided over had
13 its own explosives specialists?
14 A. Absolutely not, I don't know it personally. I don't know it in
15 my quality as minister of finance, and in fact from the 1st of November
16 to the 15th of February, I had absolutely no political capacity. I
17 wasn't minister, the government had resigned, I wasn't even a Member of
18 Parliament. And even as minister of finance, I'm not supposed to know
19 whether they have explosives or not. It is not the role of the minister
20 of finance.
21 Q. When you were prime minister, presumably you were given a much
22 better briefing as to the capacity of your own military and their
23 capabilities? You must have gleaned a much higher level of knowledge,
24 surely, when you became prime minister, did you not?
25 A. This is not the role of the prime minister at all, to know how
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 89 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 many rifles the army has, how many explosives, and how many rockets, no.
2 When we had a major problem in the -- this terrorist operation was
3 perpetrated in 2007 and when the organization of Fatah al-Islam terrorist
4 group attacked the Nahr-El-Bared camp, the head of the army told me that
5 we needed to find ammunition and this is what together we did in order to
6 get hold of the requested ammunition. But more than this, neither me nor
7 any prime minister is responsible for finding out how many explosives and
8 how many rockets the army has. This is not the role of the prime
9 minister and I cannot help you in any which way here.
10 Q. Thank you. As to his appointment, Mr. Azar's appointment, to the
11 head of military intelligence in 1998, that was at the same year that
12 Emile Lahoud was elected president. Do you have any information as to
13 who promoted or supported General Azar's promotion to the head of
14 military intelligence?
15 A. No.
16 Q. Thank you. You are aware or you obviously became aware that at
17 some stage in the UNIIIC reports General Azar was at one point implicated
18 with General Hamdan of providing logistical support for the assassination
19 of Mr. Hariri; you became aware of that allegation, didn't you?
20 A. Yes, this is what I was informed about by the Lebanese prosecutor
21 when he told me on the morning of the 30th of August, 2005, that he had
22 made a decision to arrest these officers. And as I was told, I read the
23 statement that I read to the Lebanese on the morning of the 30th of
24 August, I submitted that statement that I read to the Lebanese after the
25 prosecutor, the general prosecutor, informed me of that decision.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 90 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 Q. Just finally on Mr. Azar, from your knowledge of him and the --
2 and General Hamdan, did they have a close working relationship, him being
3 head of military intelligence, Hamdan being the chief of the Presidential
4 Guard?
5 A. It is supposed to be like this, yes.
6 Q. Thank you. Well, finally, and I will finish very soon, let me
7 just ask you some questions about General Mustafa Hamdan --
8 A. [In English] Thanks God.
9 Q. I hope it hasn't been too painful. Now, General Mustafa Hamdan
10 you know --
11 A. [Interpretation] God forbid, God forbid. [In English] I am very
12 happy [Interpretation] Please go ahead, it is your role and your duty.
13 Q. General Mustafa Hamdan, you know, became the head of the Lebanese
14 Presidential or Republican Guard Brigade. And historically, can you
15 also -- would you also have known that he was put in charge of protecting
16 the army commander Emile Lahoud in 1990 and then later being appointed, I
17 think, to the head of the Republican Guard in 1998. Is that about right,
18 that time-line, about correct?
19 It's fair to say that General Hamdan became known as a close
20 aide-de-camp to the Lebanese President Emile Lahoud; is that right?
21 A. I don't know the dates, but yes, he was close to President Lahoud
22 and President Lahoud almost directly appointed him as head of the
23 Presidential Guard.
24 Q. Now, President Lahoud in 2005 was a very well-protected
25 president. He was protected by a -- we've heard -- the Trial Judges have
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 91 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 heard evidence that he had a Republican Guard Brigade of over 3.000 elite
2 troops, presumably by the presidential palace. Is that about right?
3 A. I don't know the exact number and I'm not in a capacity to either
4 confirm or deny this figure.
5 Q. If I was to -- it may well be you can't help me with this,
6 Mr. Siniora, if I was to ask if you can give any evidence about the fact
7 that the Presidential Guard has an engineering unit that comprised of
8 15 to 20 explosives experts, could you help us with any information on
9 that or not?
10 A. No, no. Here again, I don't know.
11 Q. Well, we're nearly finished --
12 A. I wasn't a minister of defence, I wasn't a minister of the
13 interior, and it's not like you can go to a supermarket to find out the
14 information. This is not how you get this type of information. And in
15 my nature, I don't like to interfere in this sort of -- in that kind of
16 issue. What I'm interested in is stability, security, and the economic
17 stability, but more than this, it's not in my habits, it's not in my
18 nature, and it's not in the public interest that I should interfere in
19 such matters.
20 Q. I'm not suggesting you have a detailed knowledge of the military,
21 but you've just said to the learned Judges that security is one of your
22 interests. And I'm suggesting to you that as a high-level political
23 figure and then a prime minister, you would have had a reasonable
24 understanding of the capacity of some of the military.
25 But let me move on now to a final matter. I'm going to ask you
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 92 Cross-examination by Mr. Young
1 about an individual who worked with President [sic] Hamdan in the
2 Presidential Brigade, and his name is Colonel Walid Abdel-Aal. Do you
3 know that name?
4 A. No.
5 Q. Have you heard of the -- one of the leading figures in the
6 Al-Ahbash Movement, Sheikh Ahmed Abdel-Aal?
7 A. I heard this name, but I don't know the character and I don't
8 know anything about him. I don't know anything more than the name.
9 Q. So you've heard of the name of the group Al-Ahbash? Are you
10 saying that's the only information you have of it, that it's a group, a
11 political group, in Lebanon; is that all you know?
12 A. With the exception of names and this is one of the groups in
13 Lebanon, I don't know more than that. It is a group that works under
14 religious cover, but has very close links with the Syrian security
15 apparatus.
16 Q. That was to be my last question: A bona fide charitable group or
17 a tool of the security services, Prime Minister, I think you've just
18 answered it. These are my questions. Thank you very much.
19 A. I thank you very much.
20 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Korkmaz, I think you're next. The order
21 I had was: Larochelle, Khalil, Young, Korkmaz, Hannis, who seems to have
22 been replaced by Aoun.
23 MR. AOUN: Mr. President, we have no answers for Mr. Siniora,
24 unfortunately.
25 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: That sounds like a Freudian slip when you
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 93 Cross-examination by Mr. Korkmaz
1 said you have no answers for him. Did you mean questions?
2 MR. AOUN: We have no questions, unfortunately.
3 THE WITNESS: "Na'am."
4 Cross-examination by Mr. Korkmaz:
5 Q. [Interpretation] Thank you very much for coming. Thanks very
6 much for accepting to have come and answer our questions. Now, this
7 cross-examination will bear upon three areas in substance. The first
8 area of the cross-examination will bear upon aspects, not in their
9 entirety, but aspects going to Lebanese politics. I will call them
10 Lebanese and Syrian and politics proper to Lebanon, and also Mr. Hariri's
11 relationships and your relationships with the Hezbollah. That's the
12 first area.
13 Turning to the second area, this will address your actions on the
14 day of the bombing, on the 14th of February, 2005, and the days preceding
15 that bombing, in addition to some telephone conversations and telephone
16 contacts that you had, with a purpose to shedding proper light on certain
17 areas that we feel is currently in the shade. And we'd like to see your
18 position in the day and given your position with -- in relation to Hariri
19 perhaps you can shed light on that.
20 And then the last area I'd like to address goes to what can be
21 described as telephone traffic, telephone communication. Now, you had
22 telephone contacts and we would like to establish the identity of the
23 people that you were in contact with. So that in substance are the three
24 avenues that we'll be focusing upon within the ambit of my
25 cross-examination.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 94 Cross-examination by Mr. Korkmaz
1 So let me begin with the first area. This is my first question:
2 I'd like to ask you about the extension of the presidential term of
3 Mr. Lahoud which occurred at the same time as Resolution 1559 by the
4 UN Security Council. Yesterday evening you gave us your version of the
5 sequence of events and you said, in response to a question put to you by
6 the Chamber, you said that Mr. Hariri had voted for the extension of the
7 tenure in the Council of Ministers and after that at Parliament, before
8 going over to Sardinia for a rest, where he had a serious accident. No
9 doubt you recall that, that particular event?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Prime Minister, it would seem though, however, there to be a
12 slight error in this sequence of events, the suggestion about this
13 departure of Mr. Hariri in Sardinia. It's after the extension of
14 Mr. Emile Lahoud's presidential extension, according to you, but the vote
15 in Parliament actually occurred on the 3rd of September, 2004, after
16 Mr. Hariri's return from his Sardinian holiday. Is that the case? Would
17 you agree with me on that particular point with regard to that
18 rectification?
19 A. I didn't say that he went to Sardinia after the vote in
20 Parliament. I said that he went to Sardinia after the vote in the
21 cabinet and he had an accident there, he broke his shoulder, and then he
22 came back to the Parliament after that. And you will find proof of that
23 in the pictures showing that he had a fractured shoulder when he was
24 attending Parliament.
25 Q. Prime Minister, thank you very much for that clarification, but
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 95 Cross-examination by Mr. Korkmaz
1 actually I was referring quite simply to the transcript of yesterday, of
2 the 23rd of March, line 13 and 14, and it's recorded that -- well, you
3 were recorded as providing a certain amount of ambiguity on that
4 particular point and so I sought clarification.
5 A. Excellent. Thank you.
6 Q. Thank you.
7 A. Thank you.
8 Q. You're very welcome. And why do I say this? I say this because
9 that particular vote in Parliament occurred the day after the Resolution
10 1559 went through on the 2nd of September, 2004. Consequently,
11 Mr. Hariri, like all the others, voted for the extension of Lahoud's
12 tenure, despite Resolution 1559. You would agree with that, wouldn't
13 you?
14 A. These are two separate things. There's an international
15 resolution and there's another decision made by President Hariri when he
16 approved the extension of President Lahoud's mandate at the cabinet. And
17 then a decision was made to have a parliamentary session, and in spite of
18 his health he went to Parliament and he voted for the extension of
19 President Lahoud's mandate.
20 Q. I understood. I wasn't talking about Mr. Hariri's vote in the --
21 with regard to the Council of Security. Right, so we agree, there is
22 1559, resolution, that went through on the 2nd of September, 2004, and
23 then the vote after that in Parliament with regard to extending
24 Mr. Lahoud's presidential tenure, and this occurred after 1559 went
25 through.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 96 Cross-examination by Mr. Korkmaz
1 Prime Minister, Mr. Witness, from a political perspective, and to
2 be perfectly frank, by voting for the extension of Mr. Lahoud's
3 presidential term, Mr. Hariri also implicitly voted - if I can put it
4 that way - to extend the Syrian presence in Lebanon, even though - and I
5 underscore this - even though from a personal perspective he actually
6 really would have preferred the withdrawal of the Syrians. Would you
7 agree with that?
8 A. How can you conclude that President Hariri, when he voted in
9 favour of the extension, he was by this saying that he wanted the Syrian
10 presence to continue in Lebanon? I don't understand. These are two
11 different things. And the second thing, which is the Syrian presence, is
12 decided by the Taif Agreement, which had been adopted by the Lebanese
13 government, all the Lebanese governments, the successive ones.
14 Q. Prime Minister, the questions are put to you by me, but I would
15 like to provide a clarification nevertheless. When I put that question
16 to you, Mr. Witness, the situation is very straightforward. The Syrian
17 regime sought for the extension of Mr. Lahoud's presidential term, and by
18 doing so, therefore, voting for that was also implicitly to approve with
19 that policy adopted by the Syrian regime. Would you agree with that?
20 A. This is his opinion, not mine.
21 Q. No, no --
22 A. Not my opinion.
23 Q. No, I'm putting a question to you.
24 A. No.
25 Q. Very well. That doesn't correspond to the meaning of the
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 97 Cross-examination by Mr. Korkmaz
1 question, therefore, I put to you earlier on; is that the case? Is that
2 right? Can I continue?
3 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Are we moving to another question? I'm a
4 little bit confused by the last exchange. Do I need to be confused or
5 can I just forget it occurred and we can get to another question?
6 MR. KORKMAZ: [Interpretation] No. We're dealing with the
7 construal or the explanation or at least the feeling, the impression that
8 Mr. Siniora may have had with regard to the resolution vote, 1559, and
9 the vote going to the extension of the presidential term.
10 Q. Mr. Siniora, with regard to the weapons of the Hezbollah
11 resistance, with regard to Mr. Hariri's position and also that of the
12 vote was unwavering and clear, Mr. Hariri has always said that the fate
13 of those weapons should be a subject of discussion with Hezbollah and
14 never be forced -- the issue should never be forced through by coercive
15 means. Would you agree with that?
16 A. That's right.
17 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: I think we were having that problem again
18 with the interpreters' mike going off. If three are speaking at the same
19 time, one will automatically go off. So, Mr. Siniora, can I just remind
20 you -- it's an issue we have with French, Arabic, English. If you could
21 just look at the transcript to your left before answering, which will
22 stop Mr. Korkmaz's microphone or the interpreter's microphone going off
23 and us only hearing every second or third word that he says. They might
24 be the most important words, but the others would probably help.
25 MR. KORKMAZ: [Interpretation]
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 98 Cross-examination by Mr. Korkmaz
1 Q. So I have three questions, Prime Minister, that I wish to put to
2 you, three questions which pertain to possible motives underlying
3 Mr. Hariri's assassination. The first thought experiment. If in the
4 beginning of September 2004 Mr. Hariri voted for the presidential
5 extension for Mr. Lahoud, the extension of the presidential tenure, if
6 that's the case, would it be reasonable, therefore, to conclude or to
7 imagine that Mr. Lahoud would have liked to have eliminate Mr. Hariri in
8 February 2005? And of course I'm putting this question to you, knowing
9 full well that yesterday and the day before yesterday that you yourself
10 said that very thing. But what is your feeling on that particular point?
11 A. You are asking me to go inside the head of President Lahoud to
12 determine whether he wanted to have Prime Minister Hariri assassinated or
13 not. I'm not in a position to comment on that. And we are not here
14 discussing the psychologies of X and Y and the motives behind the actions
15 of X and Y. I cannot answer that question.
16 Q. Prime Minister, I'm not asking you to tell me what Mr. Lahoud
17 thought or could have thought, no. I'm just talking about a thought
18 experiment from the perspective of somebody from the sidelines looking
19 on. Mr. Lahoud sees his mandate renewed by Mr. Hariri, and is it
20 reasonable, therefore, that Mr. Lahoud would plot the death of
21 Mr. Hariri? I'm just thinking about this from a third-party perspective
22 without delving into the psychology of Mr. Lahoud or somebody else for
23 that matter.
24 A. I cannot answer this question --
25 Q. Sorry --
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 99 Cross-examination by Mr. Korkmaz
1 A. -- I cannot answer this question regarding what was President
2 Lahoud planning or intending to do.
3 Q. Right. Well, let me move to my second hypothesis. If we imagine
4 that Mr. Hariri -- okay, well, he still voted for the Syrian -- continued
5 Syrian presence in Lebanon. Do you think that the Lebanese-Syrian
6 apparatus would also seek to eliminate Mr. Hariri? Just as a third
7 party, do you think that would be a reasonable line of inquiry?
8 A. First of all, I don't think - and I repeat - I don't think that
9 through his vote to extend President Lahoud's term Prime Minister Hariri
10 was also voting by the same token for the continuity -- for the
11 continuous presence of the Syrian army. This is something that is
12 regulated by the Taif Agreement.
13 Second, regarding the intentions of the Syrian security agencies,
14 I don't know. I don't know what their intentions were and this is
15 something quite normal. We are here in this Tribunal in order to uncover
16 the truth. So I will try. I cannot point a finger here and there. I'm
17 not in a position to do that in the presence of this Tribunal. We are
18 not here to make political statements and political analysis. We are
19 before a court of law, and therefore I cannot say: This is the accused.
20 I'm not in a position to say that. Or this is the criminal, sorry.
21 Q. All right. Perhaps by putting to you my third hypothesis things
22 will become clearer for you. It is simply this, it's the heavy issue of
23 Hezbollah, some of whom are accused of this murder. And I would also
24 like, therefore, to return to the beginning of September 2004. This is
25 just a thought experiment, I remind you. At that point in time,
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 100 Cross-examination by Mr. Korkmaz
1 Mr. Hariri refused to implement Resolution 1559, in other words, the
2 total disarmament of all militia and with regard to the resistance
3 weaponry. So if Hezbollah supports Hariri in that course of action for
4 the forming of the government, if Mr. Hariri negotiates with Hezbollah
5 with that and he actually embarks upon a political alliance, wouldn't it
6 be just logical to assume that Hezbollah or members of the Hezbollah
7 would plot -- be involved in plotting the death of Mr. Hariri in February
8 2005? Is that a logical conclusion that you can derive from that,
9 according to you?
10 A. Regarding the first part of the question, it was known that Prime
11 Minister Hariri's position was clear vis-à-vis the resistance and the
12 resistance weapons and regarding Lebanon's relationship with Syria.
13 Regarding the resistance weapons, he always said that this is something
14 that should be resolved among the Lebanese and through dialogue and we
15 cannot resort to force in this regard. This is the position that he
16 reiterated many, many times.
17 Regarding the second part, again I am not in a position to point
18 fingers at someone and say that Hezbollah is the one that committed this
19 crime. I cannot do that in any way. We are here at a court of law and
20 we want this Tribunal to uncover the truth, uncover the perpetrators of
21 this crime. I do not have any information and I do not have any way that
22 would allow me to make such accusations without such accusations being
23 based on a decision by the Tribunal.
24 Q. All right. Thank you. Now, you recall to the Court that after
25 the extension of General Lahoud's mandate, Mr. Hariri was tasked with
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 101 Cross-examination by Mr. Korkmaz
1 forming the new government and he did that by negotiating, in full
2 compliance with the constitution, by negotiating with President Lahoud
3 and with the heads of the various parliamentary groups. Is that indeed
4 the case?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Additionally, you said that Mr. Hariri had negotiated that in
7 conjunction with the Syrians; is that also true?
8 A. Definitely, there were contacts. But again I repeat to you once
9 more. During that period, personally, I was not involved in politics
10 anymore between the 1st of November and up until the day of the
11 assassination. This is something that is well-known to everyone.
12 However, whether he was in contact with the Syrians, yes. Was he in
13 contact with the Speaker? Yes. And that was also with the knowledge of
14 President Lahoud, yes. If he wanted to form a government, he needs to be
15 in contact with them.
16 As for the details of that process, during that period of time
17 after the extension of the Parliament -- by the Parliament, so between
18 the 3rd of September and the 20th of October, on the day of his
19 resignation, of course there were many attempts. And I was in contact
20 but briefly because I was busy with my own things, with my own work, and
21 I was busy at the Ministry of Finance up until the day of the
22 resignation. So I was not aware of the details on a daily basis, who he
23 was meeting with, what he was doing, I did not have the full picture.
24 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Korkmaz, as we've indicated to you, I
25 think, before, we're going to have to finish today in a couple of
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 102 Procedural Matters
1 minutes.
2 Now, the question -- I'm not going to say the $64.000 question
3 because it's too culturally specific, but how much longer do you think
4 you need to complete your questioning of Mr. Siniora, that is, taking
5 everything into account, the odd question from the Bench, the length of
6 your own questions, and the brevity or length of Mr. Siniora's responses?
7 And then of course we have to have re-examination from the Prosecution.
8 So how long do you think you realistically need to finish?
9 MR. KORKMAZ: [Interpretation] Your Honour, as I had foreshadowed,
10 I think two days. Now, if I can compress that, I will do that. But I
11 think it's reasonable to assume two days, but I won't go beyond two days.
12 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: The only reason I ask is in terms of us
13 sitting tomorrow. If there's -- I was going to suggest that we make a
14 start at 8.30 or 9.00 tomorrow morning in an attempt to speed things up,
15 but if ultimately you're going to go beyond -- we're going to go beyond
16 tomorrow anyway with the Prosecution's re-examination, I'm not sure that
17 much would be achieved in starting early and finishing late tomorrow. So
18 it's probably safer for us to just adjourn until the normal time of
19 10.00.
20 Now, Mr. Siniora, we understand that Friday, which the court
21 could theoretically be available, isn't going to work for you, that you
22 have other commitments, but videolink at another time would work if we
23 don't - and I'm the optimist, for me the cup is half full - if we don't
24 finish tomorrow.
25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Your Honour, I have to leave on
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 103 Procedural Matters
1 Friday. Therefore, I do not have any objection in having longer sitting
2 hours, whatever you find more convenient, even up until late at night. I
3 do not have any objection with that. So the counsel can ask all of his
4 questions. But if this is going to go beyond the Thursday, then I would
5 be willing to continue my testimony through videolink.
6 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Yes. The risk is, of course, Mr. Siniora,
7 apart from wearing everybody out, if we start early and even if we finish
8 late, the problem is we then start rushing people and we don't do justice
9 to Mr. Korkmaz representing Mr. Badreddine or the Prosecutor in terms of
10 re-examination or do justice to yourself in giving the answers you think
11 are necessary. So I -- on that basis we won't start early or go too late
12 tomorrow -- just a minute. You have to wait for the -- please just wait
13 for the interpretation to finish.
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] If you would allow me, Your Honour,
15 I have a suggestion. Why don't we continue for one more hour today and
16 maybe this way we could speed things up, maybe, and we could listen to a
17 little bit more questions, if this is convenient for you, of course.
18 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Because the Chamber has other commitments at
19 this particular point and we sat later yesterday and we didn't factor in
20 two days of cross-examination by one counsel when the four days was set
21 for your testimony. So -- and we wouldn't finish anyway, which is
22 another way of putting it.
23 So as we have to -- I have to be somewhere else in -- two minutes
24 ago. We will adjourn until 10.00 tomorrow morning.
25 Do the Defence counsel have any objection to -- or you,
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Fouad Siniora –PRH108 (Resumed) (Open Session) Page 104 Procedural Matters
1 Mr. Korkmaz, to Mr. Siniora completing his testimony by videolink? And
2 does the Prosecution have any objection?
3 MR. CAMERON: The Prosecution has no objection. In our view,
4 it's a sensible suggestion.
5 MR. KORKMAZ: [Interpretation] Your Honour, Defence obviously
6 would seek to have Mr. Siniora present here, at the seat of the Court,
7 because his presence is something that is agreeable to us, but also
8 exchanges are more friendly, more cordial if he is in attendance. So my
9 preference, my personal preference, would be to have Mr. Siniora here in
10 attendance here at the seat of the Court, but of course I defer to the
11 Chamber.
12 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: All right. Let's reconsider -- let's -- you
13 can consider your position overnight. We're suggesting doing it, we can
14 make the order, but we're asking whether you're opposed or not. So come
15 back to us tomorrow with a definitive answer on whether you oppose it or
16 not.
17 We have to adjourn, so we wish you a pleasant evening,
18 Mr. Siniora. And again same caution, please don't discuss your evidence
19 with anyone again until tomorrow. The court is adjourned.
20 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 3.47 p.m. 21
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