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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 Monday, 4 May 2015 - [Trial Hearing]
9 [Open Session]
10 --- Upon commencing at 10.06 a.m.
11 THE REGISTRAR: The Special Tribunal for Lebanon is sitting in an
12 open session in the case of the Prosecutor versus Ayyash, Badreddine,
13 Merhi, Oneissi, and Sabra, case number STL-11-01.
14 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Good morning to everyone. This week we are
15 sitting to hear the evidence of Mr. Walid Jumblatt. Before we call the
16 witness into court, I'll take appearances starting with the Prosecution.
17 Good morning, Mr. Cameron.
18 MR. CAMERON: Good morning, Your Honour. It's Graeme Cameron for
19 the Prosecution assisted by Ms. Skye Winner.
20 MS. ABDELSATER-ABUSAMRA: Good morning, Your Honour.
21 Nada Abdelsater-Abusamra for the Legal Representative for the Victims
22 assisted by Kiat Wei Ng. Thank you.
23 MR. AOUN: Mr. President, Your Honours, good morning. Good
24 morning everyone in and around the courtroom. For today Thomas Hannis
25 and Emile Aoun and we represent the interests of Mr. Salim Ayyash. Thank
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Procedural Matters: (Open Session) Page 2
1 you.
2 MR. EDWARDS: Good morning, Your Honour. Iain Edwards together
3 with Pauline Baranes representing the interests of Mustafa Badreddine.
4 MR. HASSAN: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honour,
5 honourable Chamber, I am Yasser Hassan. I represent the interests of
6 Mr. Oneissi and I'm accompanied by Mr. Amine Abed Ali.
7 MR. ROBERTS: Good morning, Your Honours, Geoff Roberts on behalf
8 of Mr. Sabra.
9 MR. AOUINI: [Interpretation] Good morning, Your Honour,
10 honourable Chamber, I am Mohamed Aouini. I'm accompanied by
11 Mr. Hedi Aouini. We represent the interests of Mr. Hassan Habib Merhi.
12 Thank you.
13 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Good morning to you all and I note also the
14 presence of three representatives of the Defence Office who are seated in
15 the body of the courtroom.
16 Mr. Cameron, can you please give us an outline of the anticipated
17 evidence of Mr. Jumblatt.
18 MR. CAMERON: Thank you. Mr. Walid Jumblatt has been a figure of
19 considerable significance and force in Lebanese politics for many
20 decades. He was a friend, confidant, and most particularly ally of the
21 late Prime Minister Hariri. Mr. Jumblatt is uniquely positioned to
22 describe for the Trial Chamber the background leading up to the events of
23 late August and early September 2004 and the circumstances surrounding
24 the amendment to the Lebanese Constitution permitting the extension of
25 President Lahoud's term of office, the adoption of Resolution 1559 by the
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Procedural Matters: (Open Session) Page 3
1 United Nations Security Council, and the withdrawal shortly thereafter of
2 Mr. Jumblatt's support for the government. Mr. Jumblatt will also be
3 able to describe the development of the various alliances which coalesced
4 into what became known as the Bristol Group, what the group's positions
5 were, how those positions were expressed in public by particular members,
6 including himself, and what Prime Minister Hariri's alliance with the
7 Bristol Group meant in respect of the May 2005 elections. By early 2005
8 Mr. Jumblatt and Mr. Hariri in their discussions both accepted the
9 understanding that their joint goals would inevitably lead to the
10 assassination of one or the other of them. That fate befell Mr. Hariri
11 and the same fate has led Mr. Jumblatt to appear before you today.
12 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Thank you for that, Mr. Cameron, most
13 helpful.
14 Can you please bring the witness in.
15 Mr. Edwards.
16 MR. EDWARDS: Yes.
17 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: I note -- you said that Mr. Korkmaz was
18 going to be responsible for questioning or cross-examining Mr. Jumblatt,
19 but we're happy to see you here.
20 MR. EDWARDS: Yes, Your Honour. Mr. Korkmaz will be joining us
21 from tomorrow morning. I'm simply holding the fort for today.
22 [The witness entered court]
23 MR. EDWARDS: I rise because it hasn't passed without
24 recognition, as it were, that we haven't received any proofing notes from
25 the Prosecution. And the Defence bar, and perhaps the Court also, might
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Procedural Matters: (Open Session) Page 4
1 be interested in confirmation that, indeed, there are no proofing notes.
2 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Okay. We'll come to that in a moment.
3 Can I just, first of all, Mr. Jumblatt, good morning and welcome
4 to the proceedings. Can you please take the solemn declaration?
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I solemnly declare that I will
6 speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
7 WITNESS: WALID JUMBLATT
8 [Witness answered through interpreter]
9 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Before we start, Mr. Jumblatt, we just have
10 to deal with an administrative matter which has just arisen, so if you
11 could just stay put for one moment.
12 Mr. Cameron, are there any notes that need to be disclosed?
13 MR. CAMERON: I'm surprised by my friend's statement. There are
14 no notes that need to be disclosed; if there were, they would have been
15 disclosed. And he can assume in all cases, I think, that if there were
16 utterances made by Mr. Jumblatt to investigators that required disclosure
17 to the Defence, as in all past cases, they would have been disclosed to
18 the Defence.
19 In this case I can advise you that Mr. Jumblatt is not operating
20 at a hundred per cent capacity in terms of health, and there was a very
21 brief meeting yesterday with him particularly in respect of that regard,
22 and it may be that throughout the course of the day he will ask to have
23 more frequent breaks in order to accommodate his physical circumstances.
24 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: All right. Mr. Jumblatt, before we start
25 the questioning I just need to get some personal details from you. I
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 5 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 just need you to confirm that these are correct; that is, your name is
2 Walid Jumblatt, born in Beirut in 1949, you are a Lebanese citizen, and
3 your current occupation is leader of the Progressive Socialist Party and
4 a member of the Lebanese Parliament. If those details are correct, can
5 you just say so, please.
6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, that is correct.
7 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: And just one other small administrative
8 reminder, especially to someone like yourself who we know speaks Arabic,
9 French, and English, the three languages of the Tribunal. You can see a
10 small monitor there on your left which has a transcript. I just ask you
11 to glance at it and just follow the words. When they stop, that's when
12 you can talk. And please just remember that if someone -- if you're
13 answering the same language that someone's speaking to you, please pause
14 to allow the court reporter, who's sitting in the corner over there and
15 the interpreters who are in the booths to capture everything you and the
16 other speak say.
17 Mr. Cameron will now ask you questions.
18 Examination by Mr. Cameron:
19 Q. Good morning, Mr. Jumblatt.
20 A. Good morning.
21 Q. I'm going to, in a very brief way, take you through some of your
22 background before asking you some different kinds of questions. I
23 understand that you graduated from the American University of Beirut with
24 a bachelor's degree in political science and public administration and
25 that you began your working life in Lebanon as a journalist for An-Nahar
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 6 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Newspaper; is that correct?
2 A. That is correct.
3 Q. And you are presently the leader of the Progressive Socialist
4 Party. Prior -- sorry, go ahead.
5 A. I was elected as the leader of that party after the death of my
6 father in 1977. After the murder of my father in 1977, I was elected to
7 head this party.
8 Q. And I understand that that was quite shortly after, about six
9 weeks, so you have been the leader of the Progressive Socialist Party
10 since the 1st of May, 1977; is that correct?
11 A. That is correct, true.
12 Q. And in the broadest possible terms, is it fair to describe the
13 Progressive Socialist Party as a socialist party which opposes
14 sectarianism in Lebanese politics and enjoys wide support from the
15 members of the Druze community?
16 A. We have to go back a little bit in our history when
17 Kamal Jumblatt founded the Progressive Socialist Party in 1949. Back
18 then, Kamal Jumblatt's ambition was to change the political regime in
19 place in Lebanon and to pave the way for a non-sectarian regime. The
20 party was popular all over Lebanon. It comprised Christian and Muslim
21 members. However, the situation and the circumstances changed later on.
22 The sectarian regime in Lebanon was stronger than the determination of
23 Kamal Jumblatt to create change. In the 1970s, Kamal Jumblatt headed the
24 nationalist movement which comprised all the leftist political parties in
25 Lebanon that also wanted to change the sectarian regime. In 1975 the war
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 7 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 in Lebanon broke out and it was a civil war, as you know. Of course, the
2 dream of Kamal Jumblatt to induce change was never achieved during the
3 war. After that, Kamal Jumblatt was killed in 1977. I inherited him, if
4 we can say so; however, the environment, the general atmosphere, did not
5 allow me to carry on the dream of Kamal Jumblatt. Since 1977 or 1978 up
6 till 1991 we were engaged in various rounds of civil war and civil strife
7 in Lebanon. That is why today, unfortunately, the scope of our party has
8 been reduced, limited, but let me remind you that it was covering all of
9 the Lebanese territory. Now it is reduced, limited, to the Druze
10 community in addition to a few members from the Christians and Muslims.
11 But there is a big difference between the emergence and the creation of
12 the party and what had happened now.
13 Q. All right. Thank you. We'll return to some of the events that
14 occurred during the period of 1977 to 1991 briefly a little later, but at
15 present is it fair to say that you might fairly be described as one if
16 not the main leader of the Druze community throughout this period of time
17 and certainly in 2004 and 2005. Would that be correct?
18 A. Modestly I can say that I represent an important portion of the
19 Druze community; however, my political vision that started in the year
20 2000 when we faced the first challenge in the elections and when we were
21 facing the Syrian regime and later on after the assassination of martyr
22 Rafik Hariri in 2005, I can say that my power base, my popular support --
23 my supporters grew bigger and more numerous. I cannot say that my
24 supporters are limited to the Druze community. There are some Christians
25 and Muslims also who do support my political views.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 8 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Just a clarification. Mr. Jumblatt, just
2 for the purposes of our transcript, could you just give us a very brief
3 description of what the Druze community is in Lebanon, just so it's quite
4 clear on the record of the proceedings.
5 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] We are one of the Muslim
6 confessions, one of the Muslim sects. I'm not an expert in theology, if
7 we can say so, in the Druze theology, but we are Muslims. We come from
8 an Islamic background. As you know, there are various schools of thought
9 in Islam, the Sunnis, the Shias, the Alawites, et cetera. Many sects,
10 many schools of thought -- our origin is Islam. We go back to the 11th
11 century and since then we lived in Lebanon, we had a very important role
12 in the history of Lebanon. One of the emirs of Mount Lebanon,
13 Fakhreddine, was the emir ruling Lebanon; however, the situation changed
14 later on.
15 And regarding the Jumblatt family, our family had also a
16 prominent role in Lebanese politics. The Jumblatt family was one of the
17 most prominent feudal families in Lebanon, and when Kamal Jumblatt
18 founded the party he wanted to change the policy endorsed by the Jumblatt
19 family. He had studied in France and in prestigious universities in
20 Lebanon and he wanted to change this approach. The PSP was created to be
21 similar to the democratic socialist parties in the Western culture. He
22 dreamed to change the regime and the situation in Lebanon; however, when
23 you are part of a minority you are in a kind of a trap. You cannot
24 induce too much change. This is what you are facing in our country and
25 in the Arab and the Islamic world. The Druze community lives in Lebanon
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 9 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 and another part of the Druze community live in Syria and a small
2 minority also in Jordan and in Palestine or Israel. Of course, wherever
3 you go all over the world you find Lebanese or people of Lebanese descent
4 and among them, of course, you will find some belonging to the Druze
5 community.
6 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Can you give us an idea of the approximate
7 side of the Druze community in Lebanon?
8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] According to the official census,
9 we represent 6 per cent of the Lebanese population. Of course, no one
10 knows what is the number of Lebanese citizens. We haven't seen any
11 censuses recently, but let's say about 200- to 225.000 Lebanese citizens
12 of Druze origins. However, we have also to take into account that the
13 Lebanese have been known for their migration trends, and there are many
14 Lebanese scattered in the diaspora all over the world in North America,
15 South America, the Gulf, et cetera.
16 MR. CAMERON:
17 Q. Mr. Jumblatt, I'd like to turn at the outset to the period of
18 time following the signing of the Taif Accord ending the civil war in
19 Lebanon. And can you describe for me, with reference to previous period
20 if necessary, can you describe for me your relationship during the 1990s
21 with the Syrian regime as the leader of the Druze community?
22 A. For the sake of clarification, let me say that my relationship
23 with the Syrian regime started in 1977, after commemorating the 40th day
24 of the assassination of Kamal Jumblatt. It is the Syrian regime that
25 assassinated Kamal Jumblatt, but based on my conviction, that I belong to
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 10 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 the Arab nationalism, and based on the threats that were surrounding
2 Lebanon back then, I had no choice but to go to Lebanon [as interpreted]
3 and to seal a deal, a political settlement, with those who assassinated
4 Kamal Jumblatt. However, I am an Arab nationalist. I belong to the Arab
5 nationalism. Since 1977 up to 1991, that relationship continued, of
6 course the Taif Agreement was signed in 1991.
7 From 1977 up to 1991, you can say that I was one of the central
8 allies of the Syrian regime because Lebanon was subject to a conspiracy
9 and because Lebanon was also subject to occupation or to various
10 occupations or rounds of occupation by the Israelis. In 1991 the Taif
11 Agreement was signed and the Lebanese militias were disarmed, including
12 the militia that I was heading, the militia which was the military wing
13 of the Progressive Socialist Party. One militia remained in place, that
14 is, the militia of Hezbollah, in order to liberate the biggest part of
15 South Lebanon from the Israeli occupation.
16 After that, we started to implement reforms according to the
17 constitution, but we did not succeed. We could not implement radical
18 reforms as per the Taif Agreement. Let us say that back then the Syrian
19 regime or Hafez Al-Assad wanted to be inherited or replaced later on by
20 his son Bassel Assad. But when Bassel Assad died in a car accident in
21 1994, his second son Bashar Assad, the current Syrian president, he came
22 as an inheritor or he inherited his father or successor to his father.
23 Based on some information I have from some friends in Damascus and also
24 in Lebanon, the health of President Hafez Al-Assad was deteriorating.
25 The Syrian regime --
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 11 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Q. Mr. Jumblatt, if I could just ask you to pause for just a moment.
2 There are a couple of follow-up questions that I wanted before we get to
3 this stage. Earlier in your answer, you said that after the
4 assassination of your father and on the 40th day, I think the transcript
5 reads you went to Lebanon to seal a deal. Was it Lebanon you went to or
6 Damascus?
7 A. Damascus. After the 40th day on the -- following the
8 assassination of Kamal Jumblatt, after that day where we organized a huge
9 memorial, I -- after that I went to Damascus. I guess it was around
10 June.
11 Q. And you mentioned that from 1977, that point in time, until the
12 signing of the Taif Accord, you were a supporter of the Syrian regime and
13 tried to work co-operatively with them. Do I have that correct?
14 A. That is correct. I used to support or in other terms we were in
15 the same political alignment, in the same political line, because we
16 wanted to spare Lebanon all the surrounding threats, because
17 unfortunately back then some Lebanese factions had a different agenda for
18 Lebanon, a different vision. I will not get into details, but we could
19 not overlook back then the central and major threat, that is Israel.
20 That is why we were aligned with the Syrians.
21 JUDGE AKOUM: [Interpretation] Walid Beik, before we move on from
22 this topic, in your answer you mentioned that you considered the Syrians
23 to be responsible for the killing of the late Kamal Jumblatt. Is this
24 based on specific information and data that you have or is it simply a
25 political analysis, especially that we know that the judicial
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 12 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 investigation at the time was not conclusive and did not reach any
2 particular results?
3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Kamal Jumblatt objected to the
4 entrance of the Syrians to Lebanon. In 1976 before they officially
5 entered all over Lebanon, he met with the former Syrian president, Hafez
6 Al-Assad, and he objected to the entrance of the Syrian forces to Lebanon
7 and he told him, "I will not be -- I refuse to enter in your big jail, in
8 this big Arab jail." Perhaps Kamal Jumblatt knew very well the bigger
9 project, the bigger project, American-Arab project which was to entrust
10 the Syrians to weaken the nationalist leftist movements in Lebanon and by
11 killing Kamal Jumblatt and to curtailing the PLO led by Yasser Arafat at
12 the time. He knew that he would be killed and he received several pieces
13 of information. And on one of his last trips, on one of the last trips
14 that Kamal Jumblatt did to the West, afterwards he returned to Egypt, he
15 met with President Sadat, and Sadat told him, "My brother Kamal, stay
16 here, you seem tired." He told him, "No, I will not remain here, I will
17 return and I will die with my people. I will die in Lebanon." He knew
18 that very well.
19 Regarding the investigation, I disagree with you relatively
20 because there is an excellent judge called Hassan Qawas who conducted the
21 investigation, and he managed to almost complete the investigation, and I
22 have a copy of this file in my house, in Mokhtara, the details of the car
23 that followed Kamal Jumblatt, how they stepped out of the car, and how
24 they killed him near the town of Baaklin, around that area, and how that
25 car later left to -- headed to the headquarters of the Syrian
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 13 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 intelligence in Sin-el-Fil who was presided at the time by
2 General Ibrahim Huwaiji. So it was General Ibrahim Huwaiji who headed
3 the intelligence at the time, and he was part of air force intelligence
4 and the Syrian regime, which was presided at the time by General Khawli.
5 They were the section or the division who were in charge of
6 assassinations, including the assassination of Kamal Jumblatt. And the
7 list that was given to Kamal Jumblatt included the name of a prominent
8 political figure in Lebanon, General Raymond Edde. He's not a military
9 general but it's a title that he had. He is -- Raymond Edde, at the time
10 he also received a piece of advice from President Sadat. My father
11 refused and returned, but Mr. Edde left Lebanon and lived in exile until
12 his death. He lived in Paris, and I believe that he passed away in the
13 late 1990s.
14 JUDGE AKOUM: [Interpretation] First of all, I just would like to
15 correct a thing that the witness said. Mr. Raymond Edde, he doesn't mean
16 by him that he is a military general, and he insisted on that. At first
17 in the transcript it was mentioned "general," so please if we can correct
18 that. He is not a military general. My question remain remains the
19 same: Why wasn't the late Hassan Qawas capable of issuing an indictment
20 at the time?
21 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Like all the other big crimes, this
22 crime was referred to the Judicial Council, and you know that the
23 judicial Council cannot decide and make a decision -- how would the
24 Judicial Council be able to make a decision with the beginning of the
25 Syrian tutelage over Lebanon. There was a number of crimes that were
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 14 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 committed in Lebanon where the Judicial Council did not issue a ruling, a
2 decision. And with all due respect to the prominent judges in the
3 Judicial Council, I think that there are fears, there are concerns and
4 fears of a reaction and retaliation from the Syrian tutelage or their
5 agents. And in order to be able to continue dealing in politics and
6 doing politics, sometimes you have to make tough decisions, really hard
7 decisions. Sometimes you need to disregard and turn a blind eye.
8 When I went to see Hafez Al-Assad after the 40th commemoration, I
9 looked at him, he was surprised. I still had some hair left on my head,
10 he was surprised and he said, "You look a lot like your father." He was
11 very surprised. And then we sat down and he started talking and talking
12 and I had a big delegation with me. I didn't feel anything. I was
13 surprised. I was looking at him from time to time: This is the man who
14 ordered the killing of a prominent intellectual from this eastern part of
15 the world, Kamal Jumblatt. I kept looking at him and staring at him, and
16 then he mentioned the names of some Lebanese political figures, and he
17 was mocking Raymond Edde.
18 So I interrupted him because the people present -- some people
19 were -- did not dare to interrupt him. I interrupted him and I told him,
20 "Not at all. Raymond Edde is a very prominent figure, he's an honest
21 man." And this is, if I may say so, that was the beginning of the
22 relationship with Syria, my relationship with Syria. But of course, I
23 had friends, I had friends within the Syrian regime, including the late
24 general and the Chief of Staff of the Syrian army, General Hikmat
25 Chehabi, he was present, and the former Syrian Vice-President,
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 15 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Abdel-Halim Khaddam, was also present. But in view of the political
2 situation, the divisions in Lebanon, and the Israeli occupation: All of
3 these factors dictated on me this compromise, this deal that I had to
4 make with those who assassinated my father, those who assassinated many
5 more other than Kamal Jumblatt. Later on they assassinated the cream of
6 the crop of the Lebanese intelligentsia.
7 JUDGE AKOUM: [Interpretation] Thank you.
8 MR. CAMERON:
9 Q. Following the period of 1991 and onwards from the signing of the
10 Taif Accord and during the period of time when President Hafez Al-Assad
11 still maintained his position as the president of Syria, were your
12 relations with the Syrian regime the same as before Taif Accord had been
13 signed, just during that very specific period I've detailed?
14 A. The objective, of course, was to free Lebanon from the Israeli
15 occupation. At the same time, the objective was to implement the
16 Taif Agreement in addition to the various reforms. Also, we, along with
17 Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and the late Elias Hrawi, we were trying - I
18 say we were trying - to find a window of opportunity to rule and govern
19 Lebanon. However, the intelligence system, and later on this is
20 something that we called the joint intelligence and security apparatus,
21 did not allow any margin of manoeuvre, manoeuvre that would allow us at
22 the end to say that we have a country, an independent country, that is
23 called Lebanon. The stranglehold controlled every aspect of
24 administrative and political life, also the military life, they
25 controlled the army. And the Commander-in-Chief of the army,
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 16 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 General Emile Lahoud at the time, took his -- took office.
2 Prime Minister Hariri was prime minister, Elias Hrawi was president of
3 the republic. They were unable -- even in their capacity as prime
4 minister and as president of the republic, they were unable to have any
5 sort of influence on the Lebanon army. How can you imagine a republic or
6 a country whose president and prime minister are incapable of giving an
7 order to the Lebanese army. The Lebanese army was fully under the
8 control and command and supervision of the Syrians through Emile Lahoud
9 and the security apparatuses.
10 Therefore, we started personally, along with the late
11 Prime Minister Hariri, we started to be careful and cautious because we
12 had heard that there might -- they might bring Emile Lahoud as president
13 of the republic. And then in 1997 along with Prime Minister Hariri and
14 our allies and friends in Damascus, General Hikmat, Vice-President
15 Abdel-Halim Khaddam or Abu Jamal, we managed to convince them to try to
16 keep Lahoud away from the Presidency because in 1995 [sic] That was
17 towards the end of the mandate of President Elias Hrawi.
18 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Jumblatt, Mr. Cameron, I think the
19 question you were asked a few moments ago related to whether your
20 relations with the Syrian regime were before -- sorry, were the same
21 before and after the signing of the Taif Agreement. I'm not sure I quite
22 heard that in the answer.
23 Mr. Cameron, did you get what you needed from Mr. Jumblatt or do
24 you want to ask him to just go to that aspect of your question?
25 MR. CAMERON: Yes, thank you very much.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 17 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Q. I'm going to come to deal with the various steps that you've
2 described in a moment, but just for the purposes of this very brief
3 question, generally speaking - and I appreciate it's -- might not be as
4 sophisticated as the question describes - but generally speaking
5 throughout the 1990s did you have the same sort of relationship with the
6 Syrian regime as you did prior to the signing of the Taif Accord; that
7 is, during the currency of Hafez Al-Assad's term?
8 A. Of course, the same relations, the same tools, the same people,
9 nothing changed except for the fact that Lebanon had entered an era of
10 stability with the exception of the areas that were occupied by Israel.
11 That's why I reiterate and say when I mentioned that we tried to delay
12 the accession to power of Lahoud for a very simple reason, and that is we
13 did not want to have a person who was totally and completely loyal to the
14 Syrian regime. We wanted to have someone who had at least some kind of
15 autonomy vis-à-vis the Syrian regime, someone who would be able later on
16 with Prime Minister Hariri to implement the Taif Agreement, and that is
17 the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon pursuant to the Taif Agreement after
18 the liberation of South Lebanon. But this is why, as far as we're
19 concerned, Emile Lahoud was the representative of the Syrian regime, he
20 was the strongest representative of the Syrian regime in Lebanon.
21 Q. Now, you will know these things as a result of your position, but
22 can you describe for the Tribunal how it is that you knew - it can be
23 generally or it can be with specific examples - how it was that you knew
24 that Emile Lahoud, either as the head of the army or later as the
25 president of the republic, how it was you knew that he was so closely
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 18 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 aligned with Syria?
2 A. As I mentioned previously, the president of the republic of
3 Lebanon, President Elias Hrawi, and prime minister, the Prime Minister of
4 Lebanon, the late Rafik Hariri, they were suffering because they didn't
5 have a say in security and military matters and affairs. And this is not
6 something normal, and if we may say we called it at the time Syrian
7 tutelage but that was wrong, it was simply a Syrian occupation. The
8 expression, the wording, was incorrect. And when Lahoud was elected in
9 1998, we stood in Parliament, we were a minority, we were only seven
10 Members of Parliament, one of the MPs asked me to vote for Lahoud because
11 he was a friend of him. We remained six, we were six MPs who objected to
12 the election of Emile Lahoud at the time, and the rest of the Parliament,
13 120 or more, voted in favour of Lahoud. But we were afraid of this. We
14 had concerns because, Your Honours, we were unable to differentiate
15 between development in Lebanon and development in Syria. The two were
16 closely linked, and at some point our friends in Damascus would tell
17 us - and this is something that we heard also in Lebanon - we heard that
18 after the death of Bassel Al-Assad, the star of Bashar Al-Assad was
19 rising --
20 Q. Okay. We'll come to that in just a moment. Please don't think
21 me rude if I gesture and hold up my hand. It's in order to get your
22 evidence flowing at a reasonable pace for the Trial Chamber to absorb.
23 Did you have discussions at the time with Georges Hrawi,
24 Rafik Hariri, and yourself about the fact that Emile Lahoud as leader of
25 the armed forces was very tightly linked to the Syrian regime? It's a
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 19 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 simple question. Amongst the three of you or you and either one of the
2 others, did you have discussions about that issue or talks about that
3 issue?
4 A. Long, lengthy discussions that go back to 20 years. There were
5 discussions, but they were unable -- we were unable to govern the country
6 ourselves.
7 Q. I understand. So it was the position of the president of the
8 republic, the prime minister of the republic, and yourself in discussions
9 that Emile Lahoud was very, very closely aligned with the Syrians. Is
10 that fair to say? It's probably a bit of a shorter answer.
11 A. He, if we can say, he was receiving orders from the Syrian regime
12 and he was giving orders to the Lebanese or ordering the security
13 services according to what he received as orders from the Syrian regime.
14 There were a number of Syrian agencies and -- but Hafez Al-Assad and
15 later on Bashar Al-Assad were good friends with Lahoud. And we felt that
16 the margin of manoeuvre of freedom in Lebanon, not only personally, not
17 only Hrawi and Hariri felt that, but a number of Lebanese politicians
18 felt that the security and military stranglehold of the Syrian regime
19 over Lebanon was increasing.
20 Q. All right. My question was: Was that your understanding, the
21 understanding of President Hrawi and the understanding of Prime Minister
22 Hariri? And I think your answer was, at the end of the day, yes. Am I
23 correct about that? Sometimes the questions are deceptively simple.
24 A. That is correct.
25 Q. And you mentioned that you had a certain reluctance, more than a
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 20 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 certain reluctance, when Emile Lahoud's name was proposed as the
2 president -- for the presidency of the republic in 1997. And I think you
3 mentioned in a previous answer that you tried to convince people not to
4 go that way. And whom did you try to convince?
5 A. No. I think I said that when the name of Emile Lahoud was
6 subject to discussions, I don't know if other names were also discussed.
7 There are many Lebanese who deserve to be elected president. However,
8 there was an order to vote for him. I was very clear. I told you that
9 the very small parliamentary bloc that I was chairing in the Parliament,
10 our bloc did not vote in favour of Lahoud. We voted against the election
11 of Lahoud. That is -- that took place in 1998. 1998, yes.
12 Q. I understand your description of how the vote went and your
13 position on the vote, but before then were there any efforts made to
14 deflect what came to be an order to vote for President Lahoud? Were
15 there any efforts made by you or, if you know, the prime minister to
16 dissuade the primary candidacy of Emile Lahoud?
17 A. Frankly speaking, I do not remember right now. However, I can
18 say that I am very allergic to candidates coming from a military
19 background. That is why, in addition to the fact that I was convinced
20 that Lahoud was 100 per cent loyal to the Syrian regime, also another
21 reason was that I did not want someone coming from a military background
22 to be a president of Lebanon.
23 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Why not? What was your allergy to military
24 candidates becoming president?
25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Because I don't know the military
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 21 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 man, especially in the Middle East. Someone coming from a military
2 background will always be a military man. In our countries, in the east,
3 in the Middle East, they don't respect democracy, they don't respect the
4 human beings, and very few of them were an exception, maybe one military
5 man in the history of Lebanon from 1952 to 1964, it was president
6 General Fouad Chehab. He was an exceptional political leader coming from
7 a military background. We have had many disagreements with the military
8 leaders in Lebanon, and I can say that they have went beyond -- they went
9 beyond their powers through what we used to call in Lebanon the second
10 bureau or the intelligence. I am very allergic to people coming from
11 military background, be it in Lebanon or in the Arab world.
12 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Have you ever voted for or supported a
13 military candidate for president in all your long years in Parliament?
14 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Later on in 2008, following a major
15 crisis that hit Lebanon and following more than nine months of political
16 vacuum, we agreed -- during the Doha Conference, we agreed to elect
17 Michel Suleiman. He is a president unlike all other military men. He
18 came to the post of president of the republic with lots of honour. He
19 was a true civil leader, political leader. He was an exceptional leader
20 or personality. After Fouad Chehab, as I said earlier. He said whatever
21 was possible back then to implement the Taif Agreement. Together with
22 him, we drafted a document that we entitled the Baabda Declaration. That
23 declaration stipulated that one day or another the militia of Hezbollah,
24 the so-called resistance, has no other choice but to join the ranks of
25 the Lebanese army, because it is unthinkable to have two authorities in
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 22 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Lebanon that decides when to have war and when to have peace. Of course
2 we did not succeed, but we laid the foundation of the so-called Baabda
3 Declaration. President Suleiman was an exceptional president and he
4 forgot his military background, his intelligence background, when he
5 became president of the republic, unlike Emile Lahoud and others.
6 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Okay. Thank you. So the short form of my
7 question -- the short form answer was yes you had and it was
8 President Suleiman. He was the only military man you supported to be
9 president? Is that correct? I think you could probably say "yes" if
10 that's correct.
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] He was the only president I voted
12 for who came from a military background. This is to be clearer to your
13 question. I voted for President Hrawi and now wait -- we are waiting for
14 a new settlement and to see for whom we will vote.
15 JUDGE AKOUM: [Interpretation] Walid Beik, can we say that your
16 approval to the amendment of the Constitution in order to approve the
17 extension of President Hrawi's term, was it push back any possibility or
18 any chance to elect Emile Lahoud?
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It was in order to postpone the
20 election of President Lahoud. We succeeded to postpone his election for
21 three years. When I say we succeeded, I mean myself, Rafik Hariri,
22 Elias Hrawi, and also from the Syrian regime our ally in this matter was
23 the Vice-President, Khaddam and General Hikmat Chehabi. Back then there
24 was a certain growing imbalance in the regime in favour of Bashar.
25 However, we were only six MPs who did not vote in favour of him and so he
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 23 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 was elected as a president.
2 MR. CAMERON:
3 Q. You mentioned that there was an order to vote which you refused
4 to go along with for the presidency of Emile Lahoud, and who was it who
5 issued the order?
6 A. These are not written orders. The joint Lebanese-Syrian security
7 apparatus who would simply say: We want Lahoud. And then they would
8 invite the Lebanese officials, VIPs, of course according to their ranks,
9 to their status, some of them would be invited to the Beau Rivage hotel,
10 the headquarters of Rustom Ghazaleh, others would be invited to
11 Anjar where we had the headquarters of Ghazi Kanaan. They would summon
12 us and they would tell us: We want Emile Lahoud, as simply as that.
13 This is how the tutelage powers used to operate, that is, the Syrian
14 regime. They used to issue order and they used to tell us: This is what
15 we want. And very few dared to disobey them because of fear.
16 JUDGE BRAIDY: [Interpretation] Walid Beik, weren't there any
17 other candidates other than Lahoud who were close to the Syrian regime
18 after the term of President Hrawi? Was it inevitable back then to have
19 Lahoud as president and no other candidates were considered?
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] There were other candidates
21 including Mr. Jean Obeid. But you have to look at the perspective from
22 the Lebanese-Syrian relations. Was Lebanon an independent country back
23 then? Lebanon was not independent. Was Lebanon governed in a way that
24 is against Syria? Of course not. However, Lebanon cannot be governed
25 from Damascus or Anjar. And here I'm quoting the position of Prime
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 24 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Minister martyr Rafik Hariri. We cannot but have strong political
2 relations with Lebanon. This is our destiny, our fate. We have the sea,
3 we have Israel, we have Syria as our borders; however, we did not want to
4 be attached to Syria, in the shadow of Syria.
5 And allow me to add, please, regarding the Baath party, the Arab
6 socialist Baath party with its totalitarian ideology, we in Lebanon,
7 Jordan, Palestine, et cetera, according to this party we are part of this
8 Arab nation. So according to them we as an entity, as a Republic of
9 Lebanon, we do not exist. They respect a certain management of Lebanon,
10 administration of Lebanon, but they did not recognize Lebanon as a
11 country. They organized the relations, but they used to look at Lebanon
12 as one of the Syrian provinces or governorates. That's why we were not
13 only facing a security regime; we were also facing and challenging a
14 political ideology that did not recognize the others. This is what
15 happened also during Saddam Hussein regime and Kuwait. Saddam Hussein
16 invaded queue wait because he did not recognize the existence of the
17 state of Kuwait. Between Syria and Lebanon, we did not have any
18 diplomatic relations.
19 JUDGE LETTIERI: Did you personally -- did someone personally
20 contact you in order to ask you to support the election of Lahoud as a
21 president?
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I do not remember, but my position
23 was very clear: I was opposed to that. I refused his election.
24 JUDGE LETTIERI: And as for members of your party, of your
25 political group, did someone contact them personally in -- as for --
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 25 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 according to your knowledge?
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I don't know if someone contacted
3 them. As I said earlier, one of the MPs, former Member of Parliament
4 Abdo Berjawi, during the parliamentary session dedicated to the election
5 of President Lahoud, he asked me for the authorization to vote in favour
6 because he was his friend. I will vote for him, he told me. We were a
7 parliamentary bloc of six MPs, so he voted in favour of Lahoud, that is
8 Mr. Abdo Berjawi, and the rest of us, the six MPs of my parliamentary
9 bloc, we voted against President Lahoud. There was a kind of a personal
10 relationship and personal friendship between Mr. Berjawi and Mr. Lahoud.
11 MR. CAMERON:
12 Q. Beyond your bloc of six, did you have discussions with other
13 Members of Parliament who you got along with about the fact that they had
14 been asked by members of the Syrian regime to vote in favour of
15 President Lahoud? The Trial Chamber is just trying to get to the point
16 where when you say that the Syrian regime pressured various Members of
17 Parliament to vote in a certain way, they want to know how you know that.
18 That's all.
19 A. When the Syrian regime or the head of the Syrian regime reaches a
20 certain decision and issues a certain order when they decide something,
21 this is not subject to discussion. This is what they used to say: This
22 is what the president wants. The president was Hafez. Now it is the
23 President Bashar. And the decision is conveyed through the various
24 security channels, the intelligence channels in Lebanon, and in Lebanon
25 it was the military intelligence headed by Ghazi Kanaan. And also the
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 26 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Lebanese security agencies that were simply annexed or attached to the
2 Syrian agencies or entities.
3 Q. I understand that description that you've given. My question is
4 somewhat different and a very small question, and that is when
5 Judge Lettieri asked if you had had -- if any of your members had been
6 pressured that way, you said that you didn't think so. But you did have
7 this understanding and all I'm asking is: How did you know that other
8 MPs were being pressured or told to vote for President Lahoud? Did you
9 have discussions with them about their visits to the Beau Rivage Hotel,
10 for instance?
11 A. I did not discuss this with them, but in Lebanon at the time you
12 would hear about the so-called divine order or lofty order. And people
13 were discussing these orders, these kind of military operational orders.
14 However, who went to the Beau Rivage or the military intelligence
15 headquarters or Anjar, et cetera, the intelligence had offices
16 everywhere. I did not go into these details, but as Lebanese politicians
17 we used to know this is the will of X, Y, or Z, President Assad.
18 Sometimes they would tell us directly this is what he wants and back then
19 as a parliamentary bloc, my parliamentary bloc, we were in a kind of
20 co-ordination, co-operation with them, that's why we did not receive any
21 orders, we did not hear anything. I just said no for Lahoud, no for the
22 military man in power. I don't know if my answer is clear.
23 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Just a clarification, can you just please
24 look at the transcript there, Mr. Jumblatt, on the screen, line 20, you
25 referred to a so-called divine order or lofty order. It's in the middle
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 27 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 of line 20.
2 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This is a political terminology I
3 used. Please understand me, I used divine order, divine will, because in
4 the east we say presidents do not die and one of the logos or slogans of
5 President Assad is that Assad forever, "Assad ila al abad" in Arabic,
6 meaning Assad forever, that's why I said it was a divine order or will.
7 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: And lofty? Was that an interpretation of
8 something you said?
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I did not say this. Let us say an
10 operational order. This is how they used to deal with the Lebanese, an
11 order.
12 MR. CAMERON:
13 Q. As I understand it, your position throughout the 1990s is
14 generally to co-operate with the Syrian regime, albeit because there was
15 very little you could do. But on this occasion you vote against the
16 election of President Lahoud. Now, did that represent a change in
17 position for you and your party in respect of Syria?
18 A. It was the start of the transformation, change, a slow start but
19 these were the first steps. 1998 was the start of this process of change
20 and we will see later on how the intensity grew more intense in the
21 future. We wanted an independent Lebanon with independent institutions,
22 and our central objective of course was to free South Lebanon. And after
23 the liberation of South Lebanon, to deploy the Lebanese army in
24 South Lebanon.
25 Q. Now mentioned two things earlier, one that around this period of
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 28 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 time there was a growing imbalance in the Syrian regime; and you also
2 made reference to the death of President Hafez Al-Assad's eldest son,
3 Bassel, in 1994. Now, how did you see the -- what you described as the
4 growing imbalance in the Syrian regime manifesting itself as the decade
5 progressed?
6 A. I used to hear from friends and one of them is a main witness but
7 he passed away two years ago, General Hikmat Chehabi. But I would hear
8 from General Hikmat Chehabi who was the Commander-in-Chief and Chief of
9 Staff of the Syrian army, that he would complain from Lahoud, Lahoud was
10 at the time Commander-in-Chief of the Lebanese army, and that was strange
11 that the Chief of Staff or the commander of the Syrian army would
12 complain from Lahoud, and it seems that there were various channels that
13 Lahoud used other than the official channels, which is the command of the
14 Syrian army. This is something that I heard on a number of occasions
15 from General Chehabi, but unfortunately he passed away.
16 This is why I conclude that after the death of Bassel Al-Assad,
17 Bashar's star began to rise, and he had his own ways, his own tools to
18 deal with Lahoud. This is why later on we can see how we reached this
19 big impasse, this big crisis that led to the assassination of Hariri,
20 including the extension in 2004 which later on led to the assassination
21 of Hariri, and this is due to convergence of interests between Lahoud and
22 Bashar.
23 Q. When you said there was a complaint by Hikmat El-Chehabi, the
24 Chief of Staff of the Syrian army, that President Lahoud was using
25 different channels other than him, channels to whom?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 29 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 A. As far as I know and as far as my humble information is, there is
2 of course a central decision and a central command in Syria, but there
3 are a number of wings and tools and channels, and I think Bashar used one
4 channel in the field of security, the so-called Mohammed Nasif, also
5 known as Abu El-Wael in addition to other channels that I do not know,
6 but Bashar was getting ready to succeed to his father. This is why I do
7 not believe that Bashar was on good terms with General Hikmat or
8 Abdel-Halim Khaddam. I'm not sure how was the relation. I cannot give
9 you an answer at this moment.
10 But when the orders were given or the instructions, directions
11 from the Syrian command, once on one occasion General Hikmat did complain
12 and he told me this person is not reliable and he was speaking of Lahoud.
13 I don't know if this was the verbatim words that were used by General
14 Chehabi, but I was surprised because he seemed angry and upset and he was
15 a prominent figure in Syria. He was well-respected by the Syrian army,
16 and despite all that it seemed that his orders were being blocked within
17 the Syrian regime and within the Assad family. This is my own
18 explanation to this.
19 JUDGE BRAIDY: [Interpretation] Walid Beik, did you receive a
20 message that conveyed that the Syrians were upset because you did not
21 vote in favour of Lahoud at the time in 1998?
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] To tell you the truth, I honestly
23 do not remember. There were many incidents and things happened, but I do
24 not remember, but we took a brave decision to say no to Lahoud.
25 MR. CAMERON:
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 30 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Q. And prior to the succession of Bashar Al-Assad to the presidency,
2 I understand that you personally went to Damascus to meet him in 1999; is
3 that correct?
4 A. I met of him before he took office and I met him on two
5 occasions. Once I remember or I think in 1999 or both at the same -- in
6 the same year, but I remember that he -- I was invited to lunch by the
7 Syrian intelligence officer Ghazi Kanaan, and he wanted me to meet
8 Bashar Al-Assad of course before the death of Hafez Al-Assad. And I did
9 go. I went to Anjar and we had lunch. He wanted me to meet him and we
10 had a general conversation. He asked me -- he asked me about the Druze,
11 where they resided, and whether the mountain area was a mixed one. Silly
12 questions, but I did answer politely. And after he left, he left the
13 lunch, Ghazi Kanaan told me, he told me, "I want you to know who the
14 Assad family is." He said that verbatim, "I want you to know who the
15 Assads are, the Assad family is."
16 I did not pay a lot of attention to what he said at the time, and
17 forgive me here if I digress a little bit, but I remember that expression
18 toward the end of 2005, towards -- late 2005 I remembered this when
19 Ghazi Kanaan was forced to commit suicide. I remembered then that
20 phrase, that sentence that he told me, "I want you to know who the Assad
21 family is." He was forced to commit suicide, Ghazi Kanaan, that is, and
22 his son is married to a relative of Bashar, the daughter of Jamil Assad.
23 Anyway, he is within the close circle of the Syrian regime.
24 The second time I went with Ghazi Aridi and there was an office
25 where he received us, an office in the Qasioun mountain, this is a
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 31 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 mountain that overlooks the city of Damascus. The meeting was not a very
2 comfortable one, he asked a number of questions, questions focused on
3 Hariri and the role of Hariri, and you could tell the hostility towards
4 Hariri, you could feel the hostility from his questions, questions such
5 as why Solidere, how did Hariri make his connections, what is his
6 project -- yes.
7 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Just pause for a moment. We just need a
8 time. When was this? You talked about a first meeting I think in 1999.
9 When was this second meeting, was it also in 1999? When was it in
10 relation to the -- for how long after was the second meeting?
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Forgive me if I don't answer you
12 accurately for a simple reason is that my memory is failing me. I
13 remember that there were two meetings. To be specific, I had two
14 meetings with Bashar. The first one with Ghazi Kanaan and Ghazi Kanaan's
15 interest and objective was to introduce me to Bashar. The second meeting
16 I took an appointment because we knew that he was going to come to power.
17 So we as Lebanese politicians, we wanted to get ready and find out who is
18 this new person who will come and govern Syria, how are we going to deal
19 with him, and what are his opinions and points of view.
20 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Do you remember when it was? That's the
21 extent of my question.
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I think I said no I do not remember
23 specifically. I don't remember specifically what year it happened, maybe
24 1999 or 1998, but before the death of Hafez Al-Assad.
25 MR. CAMERON: I could take the witness to refresh his memory, but
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 32 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 as a shortcut in the interests of time in his statement of the 25th of
2 February, 2015, beginning at ERN 60305630 to -646 at page 5, ERN ending
3 634, he identifies the date as the 17th of May, 1999, that is the date
4 that he went with Minister Ghazi El-Aridi to the Syrian mountains to
5 visit with then Bashar Al-Assad.
6 Q. Does that sound about right, or if you were to look at that would
7 that refresh your memory?
8 A. Correct, correct. Now I remember.
9 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Do you have a diary or something from when
10 you -- from where you obtained that date to put it in the statement you
11 made a few months ago?
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Sometimes I would record some main
13 events, but no I do not have a daily record or agenda. But I do rely on
14 my friend, Minister Ghazi Aridi, to remind me of some of the main events
15 that happened, and he has like almost a daily agenda.
16 MR. CAMERON:
17 Q. You mentioned that Bashar Al-Assad, as he was then, in May of
18 1999, was critical of the Prime Minister's connection to the Solidere
19 project. Do you recall any other discussion by Bashar Al-Assad about the
20 Prime Minister and his relationship, for instance, with Syria?
21 A. I do not recall specifically what Bashar said, with the exception
22 of these remarks regarding Solidere, and I remember his tone of voice
23 that was, if I may say, hostile towards Rafik Hariri. It would be enough
24 sometimes to see one person really briefly and quickly to understand the
25 feelings of that person and how that person is. A quick meeting is
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 33 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 enough to understand, and I understood at the time that we will be facing
2 a major hurdle in Lebanon when that person will govern Syria. That was
3 my impression, my political and psychological impression.
4 Q. Do you recall any conversation with the -- with Bashar Al-Assad
5 in respect of the Prime Minister as to whether or not he did or did not
6 follow Syrian orders?
7 A. It was a very brief meeting. Later on I did meet him, but that
8 meeting, as I already mentioned, was before he became president of Syria.
9 At a later stage I did meet with him, but that was in 2000 or, rather, in
10 2001, because in the year 2000 I made a second step to escalate the
11 tension and the opposition towards the Syrian regime. A number of
12 incidents happened after the death of Hafez Al-Assad, the south was
13 liberated, and Bashar Al-Assad came to power. And if you want me to talk
14 about all these phases in detail, I am willing to do so. Just let me
15 know.
16 Q. So in the year 2000 we have -- the circumstances change in
17 Lebanon as a result of Israeli withdrawal. We have the death of
18 President Hafez Al-Assad. And as a result of those two circumstances and
19 the succession of now President Bashar Al-Assad, what does your position
20 become in respect of your relationship with the Syrian regime and what
21 you want for Lebanon?
22 A. As I've previously mentioned, in the year 2000 in May, I think,
23 the south was liberated, and that was a big achievement. The south was
24 liberated thanks to the Islamic resistance, that is Hezbollah, they
25 managed to oust the Israeli occupation forces. Later on we were told
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 34 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 that there were still some areas that are occupied by Israel, mainly the
2 Shebaa farms and the Kfarchouba hills. Of course, these are Lebanese
3 areas that were occupied in 1967, but they are under the Syrian authority
4 because up until this moment there has been no drawing, no official
5 drawing of the borders between Lebanon and Syria. So we were told that
6 the liberation was not completed. From that time up until now, we are
7 still trying - the resistance is still opposing the occupation - and they
8 still have this pretext that we haven't completed the liberation of our
9 land.
10 In the year 2000 Patriarch Sfeir, the Maronite Patriarch Sfeir,
11 along with the other Maronite bishops made a call, a famous statement, a
12 historic call, that following the liberation of the south, it is high
13 time for the Syrian forces to withdraw fully and completely from Lebanon.
14 That was a historic position that was taken at the time. Of course that
15 was in the summer of the year 2000.
16 In October at Parliament I stood and made a speech, and here I
17 agreed and I met Patriarch Sfeir halfway. I said it is high time for the
18 Syrians to redeploy. I called it a repositioning or redeployment or
19 repositioning that is pursuant to the Taif Agreement, because if we go
20 back to the Taif Agreement we see a clause that says after the liberation
21 of the south the Syrian forces should redeploy to the Beqaa to a
22 triangle, a specific area, a triangle that is between the areas of
23 Ain-Dara, Sawfar, and Hammana and then the Lebanese state would negotiate
24 with the Syrian state for a full and complete withdrawal from Lebanon.
25 So the opposition to the Syrian regime and the agreement and
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Procedural Matters (Open Session) Page 35
1 conversions with the Christians and the Maronite patriarch increased and
2 that caused and prompted the pro-Syrian MPs in Parliament to accuse me
3 that I'm an Israeli agent because that's the only language they
4 understand. They made threats against me and accused me that I was an
5 Israeli agent. This move, this shift, was after we refused or after we
6 challenged the Syrian will. That was in the year 2000. Again, in the
7 year 2000 --
8 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: You're talking into our break.
9 THE WITNESS: Sorry.
10 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: No, that's okay. It hurts you as much as
11 everybody else. So we're going to take a break in a moment. I just have
12 to raise a short issue with the parties. So if you like, you can leave
13 now, and I just have to raise an administrative matter. So we will take
14 a short break and see you back soon, Mr. Jumblatt.
15 Mr. Cameron, I just need to raise with you the issue of possible
16 redactions or the review of redactions to a motion you filed on the 1st
17 of April --
18 [The witness stands down]
19 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: -- in relation to the admission of certain
20 witness statements. There was a response on the 20th of April by counsel
21 for Mr. Sabra requesting unredacted versions of three documents which
22 they only have in a redacted form. I'm just simply going to ask you if
23 you could inform us at a later point today whether the Prosecution has a
24 view on that yet. That's all.
25 MR. CAMERON: Of course. Thank you.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 36 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: We'll take a short break.
2 --- Recess taken at 11.30 a.m.
3 --- On resuming at 12.06 p.m.
4 MR. CAMERON:
5 Q. Mr. Jumblatt, just before we broke we had -- you had been
6 discussing the events of the year 2000 which was a fairly significant
7 period, as I understand it, in Lebanese history given all that occurred.
8 And you had described Patriarch Sfeir's public position in respect of the
9 withdrawal of Syria. You had made reference to your own position which
10 was in accordance with the Taif Accord. And I wanted to ask you this:
11 Essentially does the -- do the various positions of those who wanted
12 Syria to go or stay boil down to three sort of options or models: One,
13 as advocated by Patriarch Sfeir, a full withdrawal of Syrian forces; two,
14 the model adopted by you of a staged withdrawal according to your
15 understanding of the Taif Accord; and a third model was for the Syrians
16 to remain? Were those essentially the three models that were the subject
17 of public discussion and consideration during that period of time and in
18 the years following?
19 A. When Patriarch Sfeir took his clear decision regarding the
20 necessity of achieving a full withdrawal of the Syrian troops from
21 Lebanon, according to my own point of view I think that he was right in
22 his decision, he wanted to end the Syrian presence because it was not
23 justified anymore. This -- or Patriarch Sfeir kept this his position for
24 the coming years and resulted in the creation or the establishment of the
25 Qornet-Chehwan Gathering. I personally joined him halfway, as I said
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 37 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 earlier, because South Lebanon was liberated. The problem of the Shebaa
2 farm came up later. So given that South Lebanon was liberated, we had no
3 choice but to send the Lebanese army to South Lebanon, but we also had to
4 implement the Taif Agreement, that is, a gradual withdrawal up to the
5 Beqaa area with a kind of a small presence in Mount Lebanon and later on
6 the Lebanese government in collaboration with the Syrian government, they
7 would discuss the various steps leading up to the full withdrawal of the
8 Syrian troops from Lebanon. This was my position.
9 As to the other politicians or parties, they were attached to
10 the -- to keeping the Syrian troops in Lebanon. Their excuse was that
11 the political reforms stipulated by the Taif Agreement were not
12 implemented. Their alibi or their excuse was to abolish the confessional
13 regime in Lebanon. So this is how they justified the necessity to remain
14 in Lebanon. And another alibi was the presence of the Israeli troops in
15 the Shebaa farm. As I said according to the title deeds, Shebaa farm are
16 part of the Lebanese territory, but according to international treaties
17 the borders on the Shebaa farms were not delineated. There was one
18 attempt in 1968 to delineate the borders but it did not succeed.
19 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Cameron and Mr. Jumblatt, I'm a little
20 bit lost. The question you asked, Mr. Cameron, was about were those
21 essentially the three models that were subject of public discussion.
22 Mr. Jumblatt, somewhere in there I think you've probably
23 answered, but if you could maybe concentrate or focus just a little bit
24 more on the question, it will help us a lot to understand your evidence
25 and the evidence the Prosecutor is trying to get from you.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 38 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I apologize, but the political
2 dimension was more powerful. Yes, these were the three options.
3 MR. CAMERON:
4 Q. Thank you. And you mentioned earlier that you had -- prior to
5 his succession to the presidency you had met with Bashar Al-Assad on two
6 occasions. I think you mentioned both in 1999. In 2000 when he became
7 the president, did you have occasion to meet him after that again?
8 A. No. In the year 2000, no, because the level of confrontation was
9 growing between me and between the majority of the Lebanese who wanted to
10 see the withdrawal of the Syrian troops from Lebanon. In the same
11 occasion let me also mention that in the year 2000, in my village in
12 Mokhtara, I met the former Lebanese president Amine Gemayel. He came to
13 Mokhtara, my aim was to enlarge the Lebanese National Front in order to
14 ask for the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, but I did not meet him in the
15 year 2000. As I said earlier, in the Parliament the MPs who were
16 pro-Syrian described me as an Israeli agent or an Israeli spy.
17 Q. Now, did you ever, in fact, meet President Bashar Al-Assad while
18 he was president?
19 A. Yes, later. I met him later on either in 2001 or 2002. That
20 coincided with a major event at the regional and the international level,
21 that is, the 9/11 attacks in New York on the 11th of September, 2001. It
22 was something that amounted to an international kind of quake or crisis.
23 So everyone was focusing on that terrorist attack. And later on I think
24 that General Ghazi Kanaan, who was keen on preserving my relationship
25 with the Syrian regime, I think that he arranged a kind of meeting with
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 39 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Bashar. But right now my memory is failing me and I cannot tell you when
2 this happened, either in 2001 or 2002, but the rift was already in place.
3 Q. As I understand it, you had two meetings prior to
4 President Al-Assad becoming president and at least one, if not two,
5 meetings after that period of time around the years 2001 and 2002. I'd
6 like to ask you about some of the things that were discussed that you can
7 recall in your meetings in 2001 or 2002 after Bashar Al-Assad had become
8 president. Now, do you recall President, now, Al-Assad discussing
9 Rafik Hariri in those meetings either in 2001 or 2002?
10 A. Frankly speaking, I do not remember. If you want me to give you
11 an accurate answer, if you want me to abide by the solemn declaration, I
12 cannot give you an answer because I do not remember.
13 Q. And how did you, on a personal level, get along with
14 Bashar Al-Assad after he became president?
15 A. He did not impress me. He was the ruler of Syria and we wanted
16 to achieve a balanced relation between Lebanon and Syria one day, but I
17 do not remember that he left any impression on me. There is no personal
18 relation between me and him. The first meeting was of a general
19 character, it was weird. He was asking me where do the Druze live, where
20 do the Christians live, as if he was an orientalist. And during the
21 second meeting it was kind of hostile. He put to me some kind of hostile
22 questions about Rafik Hariri. About the following meetings, I do not
23 remember, but I can say that I did not have any personal relationship
24 with the person who is now the leader of Syria or the ruler of Syria.
25 Q. You did mention that you had some co-operative relationships with
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 40 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 others, high-ranking, in the Syrian regime, particularly the Syrian army
2 Chief of Staff Hikmat El-Chehabi and the Syrian Vice-President
3 Abdel Khaddam. After President Assad rose to power after the year 2000,
4 did you continue to have strong relations with the people with whom you
5 were -- you co-operated before?
6 A. The relationship continued to be a strong and a firm one, but let
7 me clarify one thing: Before the death of Hafez Assad, he asked
8 General Chehabi to extend his term as Chief of Staff, but Chehabi refused
9 because he knew that Bashar was going to be the successor of his father
10 and he did not want to be following the orders of Bashar Assad. That's
11 why General Hikmat Chehabi resigned in the year 2000. As to the
12 vice-president, to the former vice-president Abdel-Halim Khaddam, he
13 remained in office and I used to see them together because I have a --
14 there is a relationship of friendship between me, General Chehabi, and
15 Vice-President Khaddam.
16 Q. Did the circle of people, to your understanding, around the new
17 president change from those people who were of guidance and influence to
18 President Hafez Al-Assad?
19 A. The so-called old guards, who were they? The old guards were
20 General Hikmat Chehabi, the Vice-President, Mr. Khaddam. These were the
21 old guards, and later on those who raised the children of Hafez Al-Assad,
22 General Mohammed Nasif, was dismissed of his functions and he was
23 replaced by one of the officers Bahjat Suleiman, and I think that -- or
24 he was Syrian's ambassador in Jordan. The old guards with whom we were
25 able to discuss, to negotiate within the margin of manoeuvre allowed by
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 41 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Hafez Al-Assad, they were simply Hikmat Chehabi and Khaddam. Mohammed
2 Nasif was hostile to Rafik Hariri.
3 Q. And how do you know that General Nasif was hostile to
4 Rafik Hariri?
5 A. As a politician I have witnessed many difficult problems and
6 bitter chalices in my life. The first that I would like to mention is
7 when I had to greet the one who killed my father. I had to continue,
8 given the regional circumstances. Sometimes in life you don't have any
9 other choice. I had one political conviction, but I never thought that
10 this option I endorsed would last for more than 27 years.
11 When I used to go to Damascus, I used to visit either
12 General Chehabi or the Vice-President Khaddam and then we used to go
13 visit Mohammed Nasif. We used to hold very lengthy meeting with
14 Mohammed Nasif, we used to have lunch and we -- and General Chehabi used
15 to describe the food provided by General Nasif as poisoned food. I met
16 many people in Damascus, but as I said earlier Hikmat Chehabi and
17 Abu Jamal were my friends at a personal level and were also my allies
18 when it came to politics.
19 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: The question that Mr. Cameron posed to you,
20 which was how do you know that General Nasif was hostile to Rafik Hariri,
21 I'd be interested in the answer to that.
22 MR. CAMERON:
23 Q. If I could just before you answer that, you've indicated you had
24 lunches and meetings with General Nasif in the company of others. Is
25 that one of the sources of knowledge? And if it is, can you describe
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 42 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 what General Nasif said that will inform the Trial Chamber as to
2 underpinning your impression that he was hostile to Rafik Hariri. What
3 did he talk about in that area?
4 A. Based on some serious discussions and not so serious discussions,
5 jokes, et cetera, I used to conclude this position. They use to see in
6 Rafik Hariri a prominent Lebanese and Arab figure. They used to see in
7 Rafik Hariri a Lebanese politician, a strong Sunni leader in Lebanon.
8 They used to see in Rafik Hariri a personality with a Lebanese status, an
9 Arab status, and an international status. He had strong contacts and
10 relationships with all the countries of the world, and he wanted to build
11 a prosperous and independent Lebanon.
12 However, when it came to the confessional or sectarian level,
13 this is very important in Syria, because seeing such a prominent Sunni
14 figure in Lebanon with such a status, that was a source of concern and
15 fear to the Syrian regime. This is my own political conclusion or my own
16 conclusion from a political perspective.
17 JUDGE BRAIDY: [Interpretation] What you called the poisonous
18 food, was this justified by the existence of some reports that were
19 hostile to you or to Prime Minister Hariri or what?
20 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This adjective, poisonous, this is
21 how General Hikmat used to describe Mohammed Nasif. General Hikmat
22 Chehabi was Chief of Staff for 25 years and prior to that he was at the
23 head of the Syrian intelligence. He knew how the regime was built at the
24 military level, at the political level, and when it came also to
25 confessional considerations. He knew that Mohammed Nasif was somehow
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 43 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 hostile to Rafik Hariri and also he is the one who raised the sons of
2 President Hafez Assad, Bashar, Majed, and all the others. This is a
3 term, poisonous, that was used by General Hikmat Chehabi. We were served
4 food from Damascus but the discussions were poisonous, even through the
5 jokes.
6 JUDGE BRAIDY: [Interpretation] You mention the term "hostility."
7 What is the reason of this hostility? Was it because of some reports
8 that were sent to the Syrian regime? Were these reports kind of hostile
9 to your political vision or to that of Prime Minister Hariri?
10 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It's a regime like any other, and
11 the Syrian regime is based on these sort of reports. The regime itself
12 is based and relies on these reports. Even at the internal level, this
13 is how they govern Syria. Syria is governed by a number of agencies that
14 monitor one another. They spy on one another and they spy on the
15 citizens and they report to the leadership. I don't know who that is
16 exactly.
17 So we in Lebanon, we also were the subject of similar reports.
18 And Hikmat, because he and I got along at the personal level, when I
19 started working with the Syrians after 1977, he told me that he was
20 supervising the reports that are coming and that concern me. At the time
21 he was the head of the military Syrian intelligence was someone called
22 General Ali Douba, but Hikmat and I were personal friends. This is why
23 he tried to undermine the prejudice contained in these reports,
24 especially that were given and were submitted to Hafez Al-Assad.
25 JUDGE AKOUM: [Interpretation] How do you view the various
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 44 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 assassinations, killings, or deaths of Syrian officials who were in
2 charge and in control of Lebanese political life during the mandate of
3 Prime Minister Hariri, starting with Ghazi Kanaan, then Rustom Ghazaleh,
4 Jamea Jamea, in addition to Suleiman, Asef Chawkat as well, how would you
5 assess that?
6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] All those who worked directly or
7 indirectly and were involved in the assassination of Prime Minister
8 Hariri were eliminated, liquidated. Ghazi Kanaan was forced to commit
9 suicide. I don't think that he was involved but I cannot be sure. I
10 don't know. But of course he was a prominent figure, a strong figure in
11 the Syrian regime, he was forced to commit suicide. The other person who
12 was killed, Asef Chawkat, the son-in-law -- and here and for history,
13 when Rafik Hariri was killed on the 14th of February, 2005, on the same
14 day and around the same time Asef Chawkat was promoted to a higher
15 position and became in charge of the military intelligence, but it was
16 necessary to liquidate him because the link between the accused and the
17 commander must be eliminated. And then it was the turn of the so-called
18 Jamea Jamea who was in charge in the area of Beirut and Hamra, and just
19 recently Rustom Ghazaleh was liquidated. In my opinion and in my
20 analysis, those could have been witnesses, key witnesses, in the process
21 of uncovering those -- the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
22 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Jumblatt, you seem to have summed it up
23 where you said "in my opinion" and "my analysis."
24 Mr. Cameron, you appreciate there's nothing the Trial Chamber can
25 do with Mr. Jumblatt's opinion of who was working directly or indirectly
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 45 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 and was involved in the assassination of Prime Minister Mr. Hariri unless
2 Mr. Jumblatt gives evidence of his personal knowledge of any of those
3 things he's just spoken about. Otherwise, it's just an expression of
4 Mr. Jumblatt's opinion or conclusions from the number of circumstances.
5 But we know you know that.
6 MR. CAMERON: I do and he was asked for his analysis and I'd like
7 to return to what I believe could be evidence from Mr. Jumblatt now.
8 Q. I'd like to return to two things --
9 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Thank you for that. I just want to make it
10 quite clear. In the Trial Chamber's view -- I want to make it quite
11 clear on the record, what Mr. Jumblatt has just said is not evidence of
12 anything relating to the assassination of Mr. Hariri. It is merely an
13 expression of an opinion, and the Trial Chamber is -- will not be
14 considering what Mr. Jumblatt has just said in its assessment of the
15 evidence unless Mr. Jumblatt gives evidence of his personal knowledge of
16 anything from which he could base the opinions he's given. I just want
17 to put that on the record.
18 Mr. Cameron.
19 MR. CAMERON: I understand that. Thank you.
20 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: It's not for you I'm saying it, Mr. Cameron.
21 MR. CAMERON: I do fully understand your position. Thank you
22 very much. And I'm going to do my best to go to what evidence I think
23 the witness is capable of offering.
24 Q. Mr. Jumblatt, some of my questions will seem very small to you
25 and perhaps you think that they will require large answers, but the next
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 46 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 couple, these are really small questions but they're important questions.
2 Because you know things but the Trial Chamber needs to know how you know
3 them with some specificity. So I'd like to return to the discussions
4 that you had with the three Syrian officials that you mentioned, which
5 included General Nasif.
6 And you mentioned -- when I asked you what was it about those
7 meetings that led you to the position that General Nasif was hostile to
8 Rafik Hariri, you described a number of circumstances like or
9 characteristics like the Prime Minister was a strong figure within the
10 Sunni community and that he had international ties. Those things in and
11 of themselves are usually considered to be attributes. What led you to
12 the conclusion that General Nasif was hostile to Rafik Hariri? Was it
13 his tone of voice? Things he said? Could you be a little more specific
14 about how you were able to assess that hostility?
15 A. I can conclude -- you are asking me something that goes back to
16 tens of years and 20 years. I can conclude from some remarks that were
17 made, but to be even more specific I don't remember the exact remarks.
18 Sometimes they were said jokingly, sometimes indirectly, sometimes he
19 would say, "Who does Hariri think he is? Who does he think he is?" Even
20 said as a joke from a high-ranking officer or someone who is
21 high-ranking, an official in the Syrian regime, this is a type of threat,
22 this is how I conclude, this is one type of threat and an insult and
23 humiliation. This is my conclusion as a politician. I am used
24 throughout the years to hearing a number of similar remarks from Syrian
25 officials.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 47 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Q. And at the time those remarks were made, Rafik Hariri was
2 actually the prime minister of Lebanon after the year 2000; isn't that
3 so?
4 A. That's right.
5 Q. The other thing that I wanted to ask you was that you mentioned
6 that General Chehabi had described to you certain reports that had passed
7 through his hands about you. Did he tell you from whom the reports came?
8 A. They were submitted to him through the Syrian intelligence
9 officers in Lebanon. Before Ghazi Kanaan there was an officer called
10 Mohammed Ghanem, and as I previously mentioned when you look at the
11 system, at this regime, it is based on espionage, on spying. They spy on
12 each other in order to create a state of fear and intimidation. They spy
13 on citizens and citizens -- sometimes a man does not trust his own wife
14 and a wife does not trust her husband. There is an atmosphere of
15 distrust and fear and this is a system based on intimidation and fear.
16 And if His Honour would allow me, I would like to say one remark.
17 Regarding Ghazi Kanaan and Rustom Ghazaleh, I think that the
18 UNIIIC in 2005 investigated and interviewed Ghazi Kanaan and
19 Rustom Ghazaleh. Therefore, by liquidating Rustom Ghazaleh - in my
20 opinion - even if he was called to come to The Hague before his death, I
21 think he would have been able to provide evidence regarding the
22 assassination of Rafik Hariri.
23 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Thank you, Mr. Jumblatt. Please be aware
24 the Tribunal has rules of evidence and procedure which allow us to accept
25 the testimonies of people who are deceased. There are, I think in
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 48 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 English, we say many ways of skinning a cat. I don't know how that
2 translates into Arabic.
3 But could we just go back to the question you were asked by
4 Mr. Cameron. He asked you whether General Chehabi told you where the
5 reports came from. Are you able to answer that question for us?
6 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Excuse me, but I'm not a security
7 officer. I don't know how they operated and how they worked, but I know
8 that everything was based on a report. For example, I have a discussion
9 with you, we have a coffee, and we have lunch, you write a report and
10 submit it to your supervisor. They wrote about everything, everything
11 that happened during a lunch or any meeting and they reported, submitted
12 that to their supervisors. This is how all the totalitarian regimes all
13 over the world operate and work.
14 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Does that answer the question, Mr. Cameron,
15 about whether Mr. Chehabi told Mr. Jumblatt where the -- about the
16 report?
17 MR. CAMERON: I'd be grateful to ask a couple more questions
18 around the issue.
19 Q. Let's deal with it from the other side for the moment. Did
20 General Chehabi tell you to who he was passing along the reports? Who
21 did he give the reports to, do you know?
22 A. At the time, it was the Chief of Staff. And with him, there was
23 the head of military intelligence, General Ali Douba. But Hikmat, and
24 since I've known him a long time ago in the 1970s, we had a personal
25 relationship, a friendship between myself and Hikmat. And Hikmat, after
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 49 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 the death of my father, he had a special feeling towards me and he would
2 tell me, "Be careful, not everyone here supports you, not everyone here
3 agrees with you. Be careful." He would always warn me in his own way
4 without being able to do so freely. It is not easy in such regimes for
5 one person to warn another against others, but he had his position, and
6 he had a prominent position, he was close to Hafez Al-Assad. This is
7 something that I have noticed when, for example, in his office he would
8 be contacted by Hafez Al-Assad, he would answer, "My respects, sir, I
9 will call you later, I am with someone now."
10 So he had some margin of manoeuvre to a certain extent, and I
11 insist, to a certain extent. And my file, the file of Walid Jumblatt,
12 was entrusted to him. So he would receive information.
13 As far as his working with Ali Douba, I don't know how they
14 worked, but he was in charge of the file called Walid Jumblatt and he
15 refused to have anyone interfere with that.
16 JUDGE BRAIDY: [Interpretation] Walid Beik, this is concerning the
17 file called Walid Jumblatt, but my question is related to Prime Minister
18 Hariri. If General Hikmat El-Chehabi had a prominent position and was
19 well respected and regarded by President Assad, how do you explain to us
20 the fact that a strong relationship between Prime Minister Hariri and the
21 Syrian regime that went on for many years, let's say for 25 years, how
22 was this relationship distorted by unfair reports? Wasn't
23 General Chehabi able to clarify the position and explain the position of
24 Prime Minister Hariri and explain the situation regarding Prime Minister
25 Rafik Hariri?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 50 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] We are talking here about Bashar,
2 not about Hafez. I mentioned that and I was specific. Hikmat refused to
3 continue in his position as Chief of Staff in the year 2000 before the
4 death of Hafez. After he left his position, I don't know. This is
5 related to the relationship between Bashar and Rafik Hariri. As for the
6 previous relationship that started in the 1980s and when we were under
7 occupation and we were going through very difficult circumstances in
8 Lebanon, the whole situation was different. The previous situation
9 during the Lebanese war and subsequently at -- towards the end of the war
10 in 1991 until 1998, as I mentioned earlier, the situation was different.
11 In 1998, again as I mentioned, the rift began and Bashar's star began to
12 rise and this is why he refused to continue in his position as Chief of
13 Staff.
14 MR. CAMERON:
15 Q. As I understand what you've generally been saying, that after
16 President Bashar Al-Assad assumed his office, the old guard was modified
17 and other people became closer to him. In a nutshell - and not as a
18 definitive answer - in a nutshell is that generally correct?
19 A. That's correct.
20 Q. Now, do you know how somebody like Rustom Ghazaleh figured into
21 the new group of advisers that advised or influenced Bashar Al-Assad? If
22 you don't know, that's fine; if you do know, I'd be interested in
23 learning how you know.
24 A. For a very simple reason, on the 6th of October, 2002,
25 Ghazi Kanaan was transferred from being the head of intelligence in
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 51 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Lebanon and became the head of the political security directorate and
2 Rustom Ghazaleh replaced him. That's it. He became the person
3 implementing the Syrian policies in Lebanon instead of Ghazi Kanaan.
4 Q. And had your relationship with Ghazi Kanaan been reasonably
5 co-operative and cordial?
6 A. He was an honest man. Of course it's true he was tough and I do
7 not -- maybe, I do not acquit him of some mistakes or even crimes, but at
8 least with him you knew where you stand. You knew what was the point of
9 discord and what was the point of agreement. He was honest -- at least
10 in his relationship with me he was very honest, and he would tell me,
11 "Yes, I can do this, I can help you with this." And in other matters he
12 would answer politely, "I have to go back to my leadership," leadership,
13 that meant President Hafez, General Hikmat, Abu Jamal that's the
14 leadership.
15 Q. And with the change from General Kanaan to Brigadier General
16 Ghazaleh, how did your relationship differ with General Ghazaleh, if at
17 all?
18 A. I met Rustom on a number of occasions. He served in Lebanon, he
19 served in the area of Hammana and the mountain, but he was under the
20 command of Ghazi Kanaan and not more than that, and then he served in
21 Beirut, and we dealt with his supervisor. We used to see him. I didn't
22 say that we never saw him. We would meet him, but we dealt directly with
23 regards to our political affairs, especially during the war, we dealt
24 with his supervisor, General Ghazi. And when Ghazi was unable to do
25 something, then he would go back to his leadership and consult with it.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 52 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 That's how it went.
2 Q. My question focused on or was intended to focus on your
3 relationship with Rustom Ghazaleh afterwards. You said that -- you've
4 described certain attributes to Ghazi Kanaan and said that you knew where
5 you stood with him. How was your relationship with Rustom Ghazaleh after
6 he assumed the mantle of head of Syrian intelligence in Beirut?
7 A. It was not a cordial one. This is what I can say. Because after
8 the resignation of Ghazi Kanaan in 2003, I had reached a certain level of
9 hostility vis-à-vis the Syrian regime along with other Lebanese factions.
10 Our relationship was not a cordial one, and of course this was in order
11 to implement the Taif Agreement.
12 Q. Now, as a result of what you saw personally and your
13 conversations with the Prime Minister, are you in a position to describe
14 the Prime Minister's relationship with Syrian regime before and after
15 President Bashar Al-Assad took office?
16 A. In a certain moment of time, the relationship was a very strong
17 one between Hafez Assad and Rafik Hariri. It is not a secret.
18 Rafik Hariri was considered as the unofficial Syrian foreign minister,
19 given his connections, his contacts with the world leaders such as
20 Jacques Chirac and others. However, the situation changed when Bashar
21 took office. Before that, the relationship was a very good one. Let us
22 be very clear about it.
23 Q. And how did that change that you've described after Bashar
24 Al-Assad took office, how did that change manifest itself? What did you
25 see or what did you hear from the Prime Minister that led you to
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 53 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 conclude: This is a different kind of relationship now?
2 A. Khaddam was the only one who stayed in office. Hikmat had
3 resigned. Khaddam - and based on my own analysis, this is not based on
4 information - so Khaddam -- so that he could continue to play the same
5 role that he was assuming during the regime of President Assad, but with
6 time --
7 Q. Mr. Jumblatt, I'm sorry, I'm interested in your understanding of
8 Rafik Hariri's relationship with the Syrian regime. You've described it
9 as a good one up until the time of Hafez Al-Assad's death. Can you
10 describe from either what you saw or what you discussed with the
11 Prime Minister what you understood to be his relationship with the Syrian
12 regime after President Bashar Al-Assad took office. That's what I'm
13 primarily interested, Rafik Hariri's relationship with Syria and how you
14 know it.
15 A. I was constantly in touch with Rafik Hariri. Rafik Hariri used
16 to think that he is able to continue to play the same role under the
17 regime of Bashar, similar to his role under Hafez's rule. I had a
18 different opinion; however, back then I was not close to the Syrian
19 regime, the rift was growing by the day. However, Prime Minister
20 Rafik Hariri thought he could continue fulfilling the same role, but
21 later on he proved -- or things proved that he was wrong.
22 Q. When was it that you came to recognize that the Prime Minister's
23 relationship with Syria wasn't going to be the same as it had been with
24 Hafez Al-Assad? Was there a point in time when you came to understand
25 that your fears, that it wasn't going to go along as it had been, were
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 54 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 realized?
2 A. When Lahoud was elected as president of the republic, and after
3 that they were hampering all the projects and all the plans that Hariri
4 wanted to implement. To give you an example, harassment, suspicion about
5 his projects. Once the Lebanese army upon the orders of the Syrian
6 intelligence occupied the Ministry of Finance, and the minister of
7 finance back then was Fouad Siniora. Why? Because he wanted to
8 reexamine the salaries and the wages of the Lebanese army officers who
9 gain lots of benefits, financial benefits from the state. There are too
10 many examples, and I'm referring to the period between 2000 and 2004 when
11 there was a major confrontation. There are lots of details that I cannot
12 remember.
13 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Clarification.
14 What do you mean, Mr. Jumblatt, by the Syrian intelligence
15 occupied the Ministry of Finance. What do you mean by the word
16 "occupied"? Can you describe what happened?
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It's not the Syrian intelligence
18 that occupied the Ministry of Finance. Back then we were discussing a
19 law -- the law of the budget. Minister Fouad Siniora was minister of
20 finance. The state decided to re-examine the salaries and wages and
21 financial benefits of the Lebanese army officers. Back then
22 Emile Lahoud, as I said earlier, who was implementing the orders of the
23 Syrians, he allowed himself to send a patrol to the Ministry of Finance.
24 They insulted Minister Siniora in his office, and Emile Lahoud couldn't
25 have been able to do that if he did not have the approval of the Syrians.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 55 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 He knew that the Syrians would support him.
2 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Just a further clarification, what do you
3 mean by a patrol?
4 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] A patrol of army men or officers
5 from the Lebanese army intelligence. They kind of implemented a kind of
6 a coup, if we can say so, against a civilian administration. This is
7 something that we don't see in democracies.
8 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: When was this?
9 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I cannot remember the exact date
10 because, as I said earlier, between 2000 and 2004. That period of time
11 witnessed major events in Lebanon, but I do not have the exact details
12 now.
13 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: I'm just trying to get clear in my head what
14 you've just said. Are you saying that President Lahoud sent a patrol or
15 a squad of intelligence officers, military officers, to occupy the
16 offices of Mr. Siniora, who was the minister of finance? If yes, can you
17 just tell me what they did when they got there?
18 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] It's not occupy. It is a gesture
19 meaning: Don't you dare to reduce or diminish the salaries of the army
20 officers. They went into the offices of the Ministry of Finance. They
21 just like went and visited the offices at the Ministry of Finance, and it
22 was a clear message saying: Don't you dare to withdraw a penny from the
23 salary of the military officers. This is what I remember.
24 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Just finally on that, do you know how many
25 people visited the office in that fashion you've described?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 56 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I cannot remember. I do not know.
2 MR. CAMERON:
3 Q. Throughout this period of time from, say, the year 2000 onward,
4 would you say that you had a reasonably close relationship with the Prime
5 Minister?
6 A. My relationship with the Prime Minister started in the mid-1980s,
7 when he came with Prince Bandar bin Sultan as an envoy from King Fahd of
8 Saudi Arabia in order to find a solution and to end the Lebanese civil
9 war. Later on Bandar bin Sultan was appointed ambassador of the
10 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Washington, and Rafik Hariri continued to play
11 this role as an envoy or emissary from the Saudi king, and this is how
12 our relationship was established and continued to be a very firm and
13 strong relationship throughout the coming years.
14 Q. So that relationship of many years was still strong and in force
15 in the years 2000 to 2005. Am I correct?
16 A. Up to the eve preceding his assassination on Sunday, the 13th of
17 February, 2005, we used to meet at least once a week on Sundays.
18 Q. And did you feel comfortable speaking very frankly to the
19 Prime Minister during the course of those meetings during that period of
20 time?
21 A. We always had frank and open discussions. Of course we would
22 disagree in politics. Given that I am the leader of a Progressive
23 Socialist Party, I used to believe that there is a necessity to preserve
24 the public sector. However, Prime Minister Hariri came with new concepts
25 and visions, such as the project to privatize the public sector or to
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 57 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 have a new vision of BOT, build operate transfer, in the public sector.
2 He had a new vision in economics. I belong to the old school of
3 economics, where everything should belong to the state or to the public
4 sector. We used to disagree on this but within the framework of
5 friendship and understanding.
6 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Cameron, just from the interpreters,
7 Mr. Jumblatt, we've just received a message. The interpreters are asking
8 you if you would just slow down a little bit, not because of the speed at
9 which you're speaking but because of the amount of detail you're
10 providing. If you could perhaps pause between sentences to allow them to
11 interpret it. Thank you.
12 Mr. Cameron.
13 MR. CAMERON:
14 Q. You had the capacity, as I understand it, to speak frankly on
15 issues to the Prime Minister. My very simple question is: Were you
16 under the impression that the Prime Minister returned that frank
17 conversation by speaking frankly to you on any issues that you discussed?
18 Was that generally the way it went?
19 A. Frankly speaking, sometimes I used to have a political stance
20 that was contrary to his economic vision. We disagreed many times on
21 some topics such as the public properties by the shore or sea line, the
22 privatization of the electricity. These are topics that are constantly
23 put on the table in Lebanon, discussed by everyone. But I have never met
24 anyone who would accept disagreements, observations, such as
25 Rafik Hariri. Sometimes I would go to visit him being very angry, very
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 58 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 upset, but he used to welcome me warmly with his kind heart, and this is
2 how all disagreements would fade away. We used to sit, discuss, I --
3 sometimes he would agree with me and in other instances I would agree
4 with him.
5 Q. I'd like to turn now to the details, if you know them, of a
6 particular meeting between the Prime Minister and Bashar Al-Assad in
7 December of 2003. Now, at the time were you aware that the
8 Prime Minister had travelled to visit Bashar Al-Assad in December of
9 2003?
10 A. Yes, Prime Minister Hariri told us about that meeting, how he was
11 kind of summoned to go to Damascus in December 2003. Bashar Assad was
12 there. He received him along with Ghazi Kanaan, Rustom Ghazaleh, and
13 Mohammed Khallouf. Mohammed Khallouf was one of the security officers
14 who served in North Lebanon, in Tripoli, and who later on was also
15 assigned to serve in Beirut. Ghazi Kanaan, as you said, has been moved
16 out of his position in Beirut in 2002 --
17 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: I'm just asking if you could just slow down
18 a little bit --
19 THE WITNESS: Okay.
20 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: -- and pause between sentences. That's all.
21 That's the only reason for my interruption.
22 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Okay.
23 Let me repeat. At the end of 2003, Rafik Hariri was summoned to
24 go to Damascus and he met the Syrian President, Bashar Assad, and also
25 attended the meetings the following persons: Ghazi Kanaan, who has been
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 59 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 reassigned to head the political security in Syria; in addition to
2 Rustom Ghazaleh, who had been recently appointed as head of the security
3 and surveillance branch in Lebanon, that is, the intelligence; and a
4 third Syrian officer, Mohammed Khallouf, Mohammed Khallouf served in
5 Lebanon, in Tripoli, if I remember well, and then also served in Beirut.
6 That meeting was a kind of warning to Rafik Hariri. Bashar Assad
7 told him, "I am the one who rules here. No one rules other than me." It
8 is very strange to see a head of state threatening a prime minister of
9 Lebanon in the presence of his officers. Why was he telling him, "I am
10 the one who rules and not anyone else"? And of course he asked him to
11 sell his shares in An-Nahar Newspaper, that is, the shares of
12 Rafik Hariri. As you know, An-Nahar Newspaper in Lebanon and in the Arab
13 world is a newspaper that is known to be a democratic legacy in Lebanon
14 and in the Arab world. Bashar Assad considered that having Rafik Hariri
15 as one of the shareholders of An-Nahar is a way to promote propaganda
16 that is anti-Syrian. Why did he say so? I think that was a clear
17 warning to Rafik Hariri. This is the first thing.
18 Second, it was also a warning to Ghazi Kanaan to stop interfering
19 in any way or another in the Lebanese file, and that it was
20 Rustom Ghazaleh who was totally in charge of what's happening in Lebanon.
21 This is also my own political conclusion.
22 MR. CAMERON:
23 Q. Did you know that the Prime Minister was going to meet
24 President Assad before he went?
25 A. No, but we were constantly in touch with Prime Minister Hariri,
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 60 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 the late Hariri. No, the answer is no.
2 Q. And when the Prime Minister returned, do you remember how long it
3 was before you were able to speak with him about what had happened in
4 Damascus? Was it the same day or another day or weeks later, do you have
5 any recollection?
6 A. I don't know, but the relationship had always been normal. So
7 every time he returned, he would contact me. Now, whether I visited him
8 on the same day or the following day, I don't know, but he informed he of
9 what happened.
10 Q. And what can you tell us about the -- never mind what was said.
11 What was the Prime Minister's demeanour when you saw him after that trip
12 to Damascus? How did he appear to you to be?
13 A. He seemed to me concerned. When a head of state, such as the
14 head of the Syrian state, threatens him and tells him, "I am the one in
15 command. I am the one in charge" and he interferes in something that is
16 none of his business - Hariri is free to have shares in An-Nahar
17 Newspaper - so when he threatens him and tells him that he has to sell
18 his shares and when this undermines the freedom of the press directly or
19 indirectly in Lebanon, of course this is a source of concern.
20 Q. And what you've described as occurring during the course of this
21 meeting, did that come to your knowledge directly from the
22 Prime Minister, the details that you've recounted?
23 A. Of course from the Prime Minister, and as I mentioned I always
24 visited him once or twice a week, myself and Ghazi Aridi and
25 Marwan Hamade, of course. We were one working team.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 61 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Q. And you mentioned that there were a number of messages that you
2 perceived having been delivered, one of which was to demonstrate to
3 Ghazi Kanaan that it was Rustom Ghazaleh that had control of the Lebanese
4 file, if I can put it that way. Was that your assessment or was that an
5 assessment voiced to you by the Prime Minister? Did he understand it
6 that way?
7 A. This is my own analysis and conclusion.
8 Q. Do you know what conclusions the Prime Minister drew from how he
9 had been treated and spoken to in Damascus? What did he think about it?
10 A. I think that this meeting was one of the indicators that slowly
11 led to his changing of his position or starting to suspect Bashar's
12 intention towards him directly, I think so.
13 Q. The optimism that you described earlier after President Bashar
14 Al-Assad came to power is starting to diminish; is that what you're
15 saying?
16 A. Yes, you're right. He was not optimistic, Mr. Rafik Hariri,
17 Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. I apologize. He was not optimistic, but he
18 thought that he could play the same role as it was the case during the
19 mandate of Hafez Al-Assad.
20 Q. And did the Prime Minister describe to you any conversation with
21 President Al-Assad at that meeting about the possibility of extending
22 President Lahoud's term of office?
23 A. No, he did not mention this.
24 Q. And during that period of time and into 2004, were you aware of
25 the Prime Minister's position regarding the extension or the possibility
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 62 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 of extension of Emile Lahoud's term?
2 A. The two of us, we had agreed on one position and that is to
3 refuse the extension of President Lahoud's term, both of us. Of course
4 each one of us adopted the manner that he saw best. We each had our own
5 political ways and methods, but we both agreed on refusing the extension.
6 Q. Now, your position wasn't surprising because you had refused to
7 vote for the election in the first place in 1998. Do you recall what
8 position the Prime Minister took in 1998 when the vote was taken as to
9 whether or not President Lahoud would be elected or not? How did he
10 vote?
11 A. Everyone voted in favour of Lahoud except for myself and my
12 parliamentary bloc, which was composed of seven but we were six to vote
13 against. I refused Lahoud for the reasons that I've mentioned earlier.
14 But everyone. Perhaps some were absent, I don't remember.
15 Q. Do you recall the Prime Minister voting in favour of the election
16 of President Lahoud?
17 A. Yes, of course. Of course he voted for Lahoud.
18 Q. And I take it you still had a -- you had a frank relationship
19 with the Prime Minister during that period as well. Did you have
20 conversations with him as to why he voted for President Lahoud as a
21 candidate? Was it because he supported him and thought that he would be
22 a wonderful president?
23 A. I don't think that in his mind he really wanted Emile Lahoud, but
24 as I mentioned previously the two of us and the Syrian regime at the
25 time, Hikmat and Khaddam or Abu Jamal, we worked on delaying Lahoud's
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 63 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 accession to power for three years, but when the time came it was
2 necessary for Prime Minister Hariri to do it, and he thought that he
3 could co-operate with Lahoud and work with him as a result of this new
4 situation, but it turned out later on that this situation would change a
5 lot.
6 Q. Is it fair to say that his support by vote was reluctant at the
7 time?
8 A. The circumstances imposed on him the fact of voting in favour of
9 Lahoud because the Syrian regime wanted Lahoud.
10 Q. And why was it that you made an agreement with the Prime Minister
11 or he agreed with you that you would not support the extension of
12 President Lahoud's term? I think we can all understand why you would
13 take that position. What I'd like to know is why the Prime Minister took
14 the position that he did in the first half of 2004.
15 A. Because we shared the same vision, that the candidates, the
16 potential candidates for the presidency of the republic, in that pool of
17 candidates there were people who were far more competent than Lahoud, who
18 were much more democratic than Emile Lahoud, such as Nasib Lahoud,
19 Jean Obeid, a number of candidates were more suitable, and in
20 Emile Lahoud we saw a symbol of the Syrian stranglehold and control over
21 Lebanon, a control that is not in Lebanon's interests.
22 MR. CAMERON: Is this a convenient time?
23 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Quite convenient, thank you, Mr. Cameron.
24 Mr. Jumblatt, we are going to take a break now for lunch so we
25 will see you back after that. The court is adjourned.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 64 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 --- Luncheon recess taken at 1.15 p.m.
2 --- On resuming at 2.45 p.m.
3 MR. CAMERON:
4 Q. Good afternoon, Mr. Jumblatt. Before the lunch break we were
5 focusing on the area of time in mid-2004 and you had described your
6 position in respect of the proposed or anticipated extension of
7 President Lahoud and also that the Prime Minister was in agreement with
8 you during that period of time. And you've told us why that was. My
9 next question relates to how it came to pass that the Prime Minister
10 changed his view. Now, I gather that on the 25th of August you were paid
11 a visit by Brigadier-General Rustom Ghazaleh, that is, 25th of August,
12 2004. Can you describe for the Court, for the Tribunal, what
13 Mr. Ghazaleh said to you and what you said back to him in -- either in
14 general terms or if you can remember specific phrases, the specific
15 phrases.
16 A. General Rustom Ghazaleh asked for an appointment on that day, on
17 the 25th of August, 2004, and he came to see me I think around 6.00 in
18 the evening. The discussion did not last for more than ten minutes
19 approximately. Before he came, I had had an appointment and a meeting
20 arranged with Bashar Al-Assad, President Bashar Al-Assad, on the
21 following day, on the 26th. So he came and asked me, "What will you say
22 tomorrow to President Bashar, specifically?" And here we were talking
23 about the issue of the extension of Lahoud's term. I answered him, "I
24 will not approve the extension of Lahoud's term. I am not in favour and
25 I will not approve it. There are others who can be elected." He
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 65 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 answered me angrily or dryly, he said, "Are you with us or against us?"
2 I told him, "Abu Abdo," this is his nickname, I told him, "for more than
3 27 years I have been with Syria and supporting Syria and because I'm
4 suggesting someone other than Lahoud," and there are many competent
5 people other than Lahoud, I mentioned, for example, Jean Obeid, one of
6 the candidates, potential candidates, "now I'm against you?" He didn't
7 answer. Of course courtesy imposes that I offer him coffee, but I don't
8 think he even drank his coffee, and then he left, he was angry, and he
9 left my residence. This is what happened at 6.00 p.m. on the 25th of
10 August, 2004, when I met Rustom Ghazaleh.
11 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Jumblatt, where did you meet him?
12 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] In my house in Beirut, the house is
13 called Clemenceau because it's in the area of Clemenceau in Beirut.
14 MR. CAMERON:
15 Q. This is a very simple question, it will seem like a simple
16 question. When Rustom Ghazaleh said to you, "Are you with us or against
17 us," who is the "us" that he was referring to did you understand?
18 A. Syria, Syria, he was talking on behalf of Syria. He wanted to
19 know in advance what was my position and what I was going to say to
20 Bashar Al-Assad on the following day, what I was going to say to him
21 because we had this meeting, I had this meeting already scheduled with
22 Bashar, and Prime Minister Hariri also had an appointment and a meeting
23 scheduled with him. And on the same day, on 25 August, I went to have
24 dinner with some friends. I was contacted by Mr. Ghazi Aridi and he told
25 me that Rustom had called him and the meeting with Bashar had been
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 66 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 cancelled. At the same time, I had an appointment with Emile Lahoud for
2 dinner. Again they contacted me from the presidential palace and the
3 dinner with Emile Lahoud was cancelled on Thursday, I remember it was
4 Thursday.
5 Q. Now, I understand that you've had the opportunity of listening to
6 a tape-recording of a meeting between the Prime Minister and
7 Rustom Ghazaleh which also appears to have occurred on the 25th of
8 August, 2004; is that correct?
9 A. Correct because I think and I'm sure that after he left my house
10 he went and met with the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
11 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Just on the cancellation of, first of all,
12 the meeting with Mr. Bashar -- Assad, sorry, which I assume was scheduled
13 to be in Damascus; and secondly, the cancellation of the dinner with
14 Mr. Lahoud, generally did these sorts of engagements go ahead or was
15 there some pattern to cancellations? Can you comment?
16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] My comment is that when
17 Rustom Ghazaleh learned that I was going to declare my opposition and
18 refusal of Emile Lahoud's term extension during my scheduled appointment
19 with Bashar Al-Assad, he informed Bashar Al-Assad and he informed
20 Emile Lahoud and the two meetings had been cancelled. This is my
21 comment.
22 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Had you had meetings with Mr. Assad or
23 Mr. Lahoud cancelled before like that, especially that short notice?
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No.
25 MR. CAMERON: I wonder if we could summon up three things. One
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 67 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 is the tape provided by Wissam El-Hassan which appears at position 101 of
2 the evidence queue and its ERN number is 40000843E, side A. Essentially
3 this was a single cassette tape with two sides that was provided by
4 Wissam El-Hassan relating to this particular conversation between
5 Brigadier-General Ghazaleh and the Prime Minister. Side A and side B are
6 divided into two digital files. There really is nothing of significance
7 in side B that relates to the conversation. It all appears to be
8 contained within side A, but for completeness it may well be that they
9 should stay together. So those two are at positions 101 and 102 of the
10 evidence queue.
11 The transcripts in respect of side A, which we were mostly
12 concerned with, are found at position 108 of the -- in Arabic and 109 of
13 the queue in English. These transcripts have been provided to the
14 Tribunal's interpreters and to Language Services, both of whom have
15 reviewed them, made amendments, and produced as close to accurate
16 versions as possible of both the transcriptions and the translations into
17 English.
18 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Cameron, can you just assist me, these
19 aren't part of Exhibit P409?
20 MR. CAMERON: No. The reason is that there were three different
21 conversations. There was the January the 9th conversation between
22 Rustom Ghazaleh and the Prime Minister and Charles Ayoub; there was the
23 February 1st conversation which we have not yet got to between
24 Foreign Minister Walid Moallem and the Prime Minister, and that is what
25 you've just referred to as Exhibit 409 and 409.1, the transcripts. This
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 68 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 one has not yet received an exhibit number. The tape runs for about 45
2 minutes. The time of the meeting appears to occupy significantly less
3 than that and I'm proposing to play, at most, something under seven or
4 eight minutes of the tape to get an accurate flavour of what was
5 discussed between the two men. So if we could have the Arabic and
6 English versions of the transcript up. It's all one ERN number, but the
7 transcripts are now time-stamped and the first time-stamped page that I
8 would go to is, in fact, the second page beginning with the time-stamp
9 00:02:15. The words that I would like to begin with are about halfway
10 down that page and they begin with:
11 "How are you?
12 "Well, I'm more than fine ..."
13 And that begins in the tape itself at 04.04.
14 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: This is the 9th of January, 2005?
15 MR. CAMERON: Can I have a moment, please.
16 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: What's the date of this, I'm sorry?
17 MR. CAMERON: The date of the tape and the transcript should be
18 the 25th of August, 2004.
19 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: My apologies.
20 MR. CAMERON: Oh good.
21 The issue seems to be, for a reason unknown to me and I think to
22 everyone, that no timing appears in the video player. What I'd like to
23 do is to ask Mr. Jumblatt whether he can confirm that the voices are
24 indeed those voices, and then perhaps we can simply work from the
25 transcript which might be simpler in any event given the fact that the
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 69 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 court reporters and the interpreters and Language Services have been
2 through the actual tape and the transcript.
3 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Are you planning to play from 4.04 onwards?
4 MR. CAMERON: Yes, from 4.04 until 08.41. And I can --
5 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: It's only four minutes. Why don't we just
6 start from the beginning and get to there. That will work, won't it?
7 MR. CAMERON: It could do, but ...
8 As always the clerk has a solution, and the timings again for his
9 benefit would begin at 04.04 and we'll be stopping at 08.41, but I'll let
10 you know.
11 [Audio-clip played]
12 MR. CAMERON: So the tape itself should be 40000843E, side A, and
13 the first time should be 04.04.
14 [Audio-clip played]
15 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover]
16 "Yes, at 10.30.
17 "Tomorrow His Excellency the president wishes to see you.
18 "Tomorrow?
19 "Yes, at 10.30. Why are you laughing" --
20 MR. CAMERON: Could you just stop it there for a second, please.
21 Q. Now, Mr. Jumblatt, are you in a position now to recognize the
22 voices before we go any further?
23 A. The voice of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and that of
24 Rustom Ghazaleh. I heard Rafik Hariri greeting and welcoming
25 Rustom Ghazaleh and other surrounding sounds. I'm sure of it.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 70 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 MR. CAMERON: Perhaps we can continue on then, please.
2 [Video-clip played]
3 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover]
4 "Ghazaleh: Who told you that?
5 "Hariri: The president of the republic.
6 "Ghazaleh: The president doesn't know!
7 "Hariri: Well, the president called, he called [unclear] and
8 said if he was, I mean if... he is busy before noon so if we could hold
9 the cabinet meeting in the afternoon. I said no.
10 "Ghazaleh: The president does not know.
11 "Hariri: Ok, ok... it does not matter... ten thirty?
12 "Ghazaleh: 10.30. Let's say at 11.00. You would finish at one
13 o'clock. How long would you need, two hours in the meeting, an hour and
14 a half, [unclear].
15 "Hariri: It seems that Walid Jumblatt is going...
16 "Ghazaleh: Walid...
17 "Hariri: What time?
18 "Ghazaleh: 9.00.
19 "Hariri: Oh, he is going before me ... good. How is the family?
20 "Ghazaleh: Fine...
21 "Hariri: Are you staying tomorrow?
22 "Ghazaleh: I want to see what you will do tomorrow.
23 "Hariri: And when is Nabih going?
24 "Ghazaleh: Nabih is going at noon, afternoon.
25 "Hariri: Aha, it means everyone.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 71 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 "Ghazaleh: And what is your answer?
2 "Hariri: Well we will see...
3 "Ghazaleh: Are you prepared...
4 "Hariri: What does the president have, what does his Excellency
5 president have...
6 "Ghazaleh: What are you going to do?
7 "Hariri: Let us see what the president has to say; doesn't he
8 want to talk to us?
9 "Ghazaleh: Sure.
10 "Hariri: Ok, let us see...
11 "Ghazaleh: He might ask you, all of you, to call for an
12 extraordinary session tomorrow [whispering - be ready and prepare what
13 you want to say about it]
14 "Ghazaleh: What well you do?
15 "Hariri: We will see what the whole conversation will be about,
16 it's a group of things not just one, right?
17 "Ghazaleh: Let's see. He might ask you to call for a session...
18 to open a session will require the prime minister or does it only need
19 the signature of [unclear word]?
20 "Hariri: No, no, his signature and mine... There are two ways
21 to call for a session, either both the Prime Minister and the President
22 of the Republic, or the Parliament requests it, maybe it's half the
23 Parliament that requests this.
24 "Ghazaleh: No, the government, not the Parliament.
25 "Hariri: I am just telling you how to call for a session.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 72 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 "Ghazaleh: Ten...
2 "Hariri: No...
3 "Ghazaleh: When it is a regular session.
4 "Hariri: 65... no, no, you are talking about amending the
5 constitution.
6 "Ghazaleh: Yes, about the amendment...
7 "Hariri: No, amending the constitution is more complicated. It
8 requires calling for a session, it requires that during the ordinary
9 session, ten members submit it to the general assembly and two-thirds of
10 the MPs have to vote for, to start with, then they send it to the
11 government, and the government has 4 months to respond!
12 "Ghazaleh: 4 months!
13 "Hariri: Yes... [Laughs]... this is the constitution I mean...
14 May God bring what is best; let us hope for the best.
15 "Ghazaleh: What do you want?
16 "Hariri: Let's see...
17 "[Mobile phone rings]
18 "Ghazaleh: Go and talk to him I suppose.
19 "Hariri: Let's see what he wants, we will talk to him and see
20 what he wants... the session in itself is not the objective.
21 "Ghazaleh: I mean he could ask for example, he might talk to you
22 about the extension or renewal for Lahoud...
23 "Hariri: Let us discuss it with him Abou-Abdo, why are you in a
24 hurry?
25 "Ghazaleh: No, I am not in a hurry but I want you to be
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 73 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 prepared...
2 "[Mobile phone rings again]
3 "Ghazaleh: What are you prepared for?
4 "Hariri: Well definitely according to the discussion and what he
5 wants to talk to us about, I mean if there is no need for... if the issue
6 is just for me to go and measure the road, I won't measure the road, I am
7 going to talk to him..."
8 MR. CAMERON: We could stop there for a moment.
9 Q. Now that we've had this short passage from this conversation
10 between the Prime Minister and Rustom Ghazaleh, I'd like to ask you a
11 couple of questions, if I may. There's a reference to Nabih going at
12 noon and who do you understand that to be in respect of?
13 A. Speaker Nabih Berri, Speaker of the Parliament, current Speaker
14 of the Parliament and he was also a Speaker when the conversation took
15 place, Speaker Nabih Berri.
16 Q. Do you happen to know whether Speaker Nabih Berri in fact went to
17 Damascus on the 26th of August?
18 A. I do not remember.
19 Q. There's a discussion about the role of the Prime Minister and the
20 role of the president in the process of amending the constitution, but
21 there was no mention of the Speaker's role. Do you know whether the
22 Speaker would have a role in such a process of amendment such as the one
23 that extended the article in the Lebanese Constitution?
24 A. Of course you cannot have any article of the constitution amended
25 without the approval of the Speaker. This is normal. He has to convene
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 74 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 the Parliament, but as I understood from this discussion between
2 Rustom Ghazaleh and Prime Minister Hariri, he is -- or Rustom Ghazaleh is
3 saying or insinuating that Prime Minister Hariri should look for
4 exceptional solutions and asked him to be prepared to amend the
5 constitution. And Hariri replied in his own words and in his own way
6 that the amendment of the constitution - I apologize - he said that the
7 extension requires the two-thirds of the MPs' votes and he told him that
8 it is much more complicated than you could imagine. In political terms,
9 Hariri was telling Rustom Ghazaleh that I will not approve the amendment
10 of the constitution and I will not approve the extension of the
11 president's term. This is my impression.
12 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Clarification, a moment ago you said you
13 cannot have any article of the constitution amended without the approval
14 of the Speaker. Do you mean by that that the Speaker had to convene the
15 Parliament as opposed to give his personal approval to an amendment?
16 Because it would seem to me that if the Speaker didn't approve of it, and
17 he's the only Member of Parliament who doesn't, he could in fact stymie
18 the entire process by not convening Parliament; is it correct?
19 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] I did not mean that. Either the
20 government sends a draft bill or law to extend the term of
21 President Lahoud or we have to have ten MPs who sign a petition to amend
22 the constitution before the Parliament. So the -- there are two options:
23 Either through a draft bill sent by the cabinet to the Parliament or a
24 petition sent by ten MPs and then subject to vote whether in favour or
25 against.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 75 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: So it doesn't require the Speaker's
2 approval?
3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Of course we need the Speaker's
4 approval because he is the one that convenes the Parliament to hold a
5 session. He is the one who convenes the parliamentary sessions. Without
6 the Speaker, you cannot convene the Parliament. And here we are also
7 mentioning a case whereby there will be an exceptional session to amend
8 the constitution in order to extend the term of President Lahoud.
9 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: My only point of confusion was the word
10 "approval." If the Speaker is merely doing his job, would he not convene
11 Parliament whether or not he approved of the constitutional amendment
12 because it is his role, is it not, to convene Parliament to allow free
13 debate on such matters? It doesn't require his personal approval for him
14 to actually open a session of Parliament.
15 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] That is correct. That is why he
16 was included on the schedule of meetings. He went to Damascus - I don't
17 remember if he went or not - but he was probably asked to open a
18 parliamentary session in order to discuss this topic.
19 JUDGE BRAIDY: [Interpretation] Mr. Jumblatt, doesn't it seem to
20 you based on this recording that Prime Minister Hariri did not want to
21 reveal his position regarding the extension, he did not want to reveal
22 his position to Rustom Ghazaleh but he wanted to discuss this in person
23 and directly with President Assad?
24 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] The words of Rafik Hariri to Rustom
25 are very clearly, he said that: "I will discuss this whole topic
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 76 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 in-depth with President Assad." And he clearly said to Rustom Ghazaleh,
2 "I'm not going just to measure the length of the road or the trip between
3 Damascus and Beirut," he was very clear. That's why he did not give his
4 opinion to Rustom Ghazaleh. Contrary to my own position, I said to
5 Rustom Ghazaleh that I'm opposed to the extension. He has his own way,
6 he was diplomatic in his approach, I was more clear, more direct, and
7 each one of us had his own style and approach.
8 JUDGE BRAIDY: [Interpretation] Is this what you were trying to
9 say when you said earlier that you both had agreed on refusing the
10 extension but each one of you in his own way?
11 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes. Both Rafik Hariri and myself
12 agreed to refuse and oppose the extension, but each one of us has his
13 method. I have my personal method and Prime Minister Hariri perhaps
14 thought that he could convince Bashar Assad of the possibility of
15 electing a president other than Emile Lahoud and thus avoiding the
16 extension.
17 JUDGE AKOUM: [Interpretation] I just would like to clarify
18 something and to -- a confirmation from you regarding the constitution.
19 This does not require the approval of the Speaker. The constitution can
20 be approved by a majority of two-thirds, whether the Speaker approves or
21 not. Undoubtedly the Speaker of Parliament plays an important role in
22 convening a parliamentary session and that would allow to discuss this
23 suggestion, be it from the government or submitted by ten MPs, but his
24 approval is not essential for the amendment of the constitution.
25 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Technically you are right, but
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 77 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 politically of course the Speaker of Parliament has an important
2 political opinion and role to play and he has a big parliamentary bloc.
3 We are talking about politics. Technically, yes, you are right, but in
4 politics the situation is different.
5 MR. CAMERON:
6 Q. We ended the tape at 08.41 and I'd like to -- 45. Thank you,
7 Mr. Clerk. And I'd like to carry on for another minute to minute and 30
8 seconds. I'll tell you when to stop. If you can recommence the tape,
9 please.
10 [Audio-clip played]
11 THE INTERPRETER: [Voiceover]
12 "Hariri: ... How's the weather in Damascus, is it hotter than
13 here?
14 "Ghazaleh: Just like here.
15 "Hariri: Yesterday was incredibly hot... it was hot even in
16 Diman with temperatures up to 31 degrees.
17 "Ghazaleh: How was the meeting with the patriarch?
18 "Hariri: Well, he repeated what he said earlier. I mean, he was
19 giving an interview anyway...
20 "Ghazaleh: By the way, the French Ambassador, what was he doing
21 here six days ago, and then he left?
22 "Hariri: They have...
23 "Ghazaleh: Did he see you, and the Patriarch?
24 "Hariri: I do not know if he saw the Patriarch... he did a
25 tour... he was on vacation...
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 78 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 "Ghazaleh: He ended his vacation and came...
2 "Hariri: No, he did not end his vacation; it was planned as
3 such. They have what they call the annual ambassadors meeting around the
4 world.
5 "Ghazaleh: Aha...
6 "Hariri: At this time, so... [Mobile phone rings for the third
7 time] all the Ambassadors around the world meet at the President's
8 office, the great countries usually do this.
9 "Ghazaleh: Aha.
10 "Hariri: And he gives his instructions to all of them. I think
11 he was here to check on his Embassy since he told me nothing...
12 "Ghazaleh: What did he say about the presidential election?
13 "Hariri: He didn't talk about it... he asked what's happening I
14 told him the same thing and that I was travelling. He asked if I was
15 going to Paris, I said I have no plans, I wasn't even planning to go to
16 Morocco by [unclear - whispering] the Patriarch I mean the words...
17 "Ghazaleh: What did he say to you about the election?
18 "Hariri: The same things. Today he spoke with Nicolas Nassif.
19 He must have told you he said things.
20 "Ghazaleh: Did he ask about your position and you told him you
21 have not decided yet?
22 "Hariri: I told him no one asked me, when they ask me I will
23 respond, I told him I am Prime minister [unclear whispering] I am even
24 [unclear]. I would have spoken from the beginning but now the issue is
25 taking a more serious path... when they ask me I will reply, I did not
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 79 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 say anything, I told you I am not saying anything."
2 MR. CAMERON: Okay, if we could stop it there and may I ask the
3 clerk what timing is that on your machine? 11.10. Thank you.
4 Q. Now, Mr. Jumblatt, we can hear Rustom Ghazaleh asking the
5 Prime Minister about the patriarch and his view of the election and what
6 was said as well as the French ambassador and his view, did he ask about
7 the election, what was told to him. Did Rustom Ghazaleh ask you similar
8 questions about people that you met, what their positions were in respect
9 of the extension of President Lahoud?
10 A. No, he did not ask me any question regarding the people I've met
11 or who I've been talking to. He only asked me what I was going to say,
12 what I was planning to say to the president the following day, and I
13 replied I will not be extending Lahoud's term, and we can find a suitable
14 president other than Lahoud. He answered the way I mentioned earlier,
15 "Are you with us or against us?" But there was no lengthy conversation.
16 The whole conversation took less than ten minutes with Rustom Ghazaleh
17 taking into consideration that he was finishing his coffee.
18 Q. When you had your conversation with Brigadier-General Ghazaleh
19 and you gave voice to the concept that, no, there are other people other
20 than Emile Lahoud who could fulfil this task, talented, dedicated,
21 hard-working people, that kind of thing and he responded in the manner he
22 did to you, "Are you with us or against us?" Did that surprise you at
23 the time, that kind of response?
24 A. Of course I was surprised. Of course I was surprised, but I was
25 surprised that I was suddenly becoming and overnight becoming an enemy of
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 80 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Syria, but at the same time when I go back to the period where I was
2 unjustly and unfairly accused at Parliament that I was an Israeli agent
3 simply because I wanted to implement Taif, I wasn't surprised anymore.
4 At the same time, I knew Rustom very well, his personality, his
5 character, then no I shouldn't be surprised. But I felt his animosity,
6 his hostility, and the hostility of Bashar indirectly towards me, and
7 later on I also concluded - later on in that week or the following day -
8 Bashar's hostility towards Rafik Hariri.
9 MR. CAMERON: I wonder if I could ask for an exhibit number for
10 the tape that we just played, and it is probably best to keep the side A
11 and side B together even though they're two electronic files. So the two
12 audio -- digital audio files that appear at positions 101 and 102 can
13 perhaps receive the same exhibit number together with the transcripts
14 that appear for side A at 108 in the Arabic and 109 in the English and
15 for side B at 106 in the Arabic and 110 in the English of the Prosecution
16 presentation queue.
17 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Okay. The tapes will be Exhibit P422 and
18 the transcripts will be Exhibit P422.1. Can you just help us with a very
19 brief description including the ERN, time, date, et cetera.
20 MR. CAMERON: Yes. The tapes themselves were provided by
21 Wissam El-Hassan to UNIIIC investigators, and they have received the ERN
22 number 40000843E, side A, and the same ERN number, side B. The date of
23 the conversation is, as verified by Mr. Jumblatt, the 25th of August,
24 2004. The speakers are Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and
25 Brigadier-General Rustom Ghazaleh.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 81 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Mr. Cameron, can you also remind me, the
2 Trial Chamber ruled on their admissibility, didn't they, in a decision?
3 MR. CAMERON: Yes.
4 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Which is why I didn't turn to the Defence to
5 see if they had any objection because I'm -- I recall deciding that these
6 were admissible at some earlier point.
7 MR. CAMERON: You permitted them to be added to the exhibit list
8 of the Prosecution, and in respect of the tape that was admitted
9 obviously it went in. We also discussed the admissibility of the tape of
10 February the 1st. But strictly speaking, this one was decided upon as
11 a -- in a decision entitled: "Authorizing the Prosecution to Amend its
12 Witness and Exhibit List, Decision F17880." And at paragraph 20 of the
13 Chamber's judgment, you said in 2005 Mr. El-Hassan provided UNIIIC with
14 audio recordings of three meetings involving Mr. Hariri. The Chamber
15 indicated that the admissibility of the tapes would be decided at a later
16 appropriate point. In respect of two of them that has been decided, and
17 the third comes before you today.
18 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Well, it appears before I gave the exhibit
19 number I should have turned to the Defence. I apologize to that. Is
20 there any retrospective objection to receiving those into evidence on the
21 same basis we received the other two Mr. Cameron referred to? It appears
22 not. There is no objection, so they will remain Exhibit P422 and P422.1.
23 MR. CAMERON: I'm most grateful. And I've -- I had not planned
24 to play any more of the tapes. That's a sufficient excerpt for their
25 evidentiary value in my view.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 82 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Q. Now, Mr. Jumblatt, your meeting was cancelled but you know that
2 the Prime Minister went to Damascus to meet with President Bashar
3 Al-Assad on the 26th of August, 2004. And can you describe the first
4 time you learned what had happened as a result of that meeting?
5 A. When he left Damascus and he was on his way back to Beirut from
6 Damascus returning to Beirut, he contacted my residence and told me that,
7 "I'm coming to see you." So I said, "You're welcome." And around 12.00,
8 12.30, he arrived. I was there with Ghazi Aridi, Marwan Hamade, he
9 arrived with MP Bassem El-Sabeh. We sat in the garden, in the outside
10 garden. It was a summer's day. It was very warm. He looked upset,
11 angry, sad. He -- his demeanour was strange. He sat down and by his
12 side Bassem El-Sabeh and he told us what had happened between him and
13 between Bashar Al-Assad. He said that Bashar Al-Assad told him, "Lahoud
14 is me and I am Lahoud. I want you to extend. And if Chirac wants to get
15 me out of Lebanon, I will break Lebanon, I will destroy Lebanon. As for
16 Walid Jumblatt, the same as he has a Druze community, I also have a Druze
17 community."
18 We all sat down and listened to him and we started thinking. We
19 thought for a long time and of course I concluded that this was a direct
20 threat, political and physical, to Rafik Hariri. And I saw him, as I
21 just mentioned, he was very sad and angry. So I told him, I took the
22 initiative and told him, "You are my friend. I advise you," and I know
23 him, "I know what they can do, I know these people, I know them very
24 well. I know this regime very well and what it's capable of. You are my
25 friend. Go and extend Lahoud's term. I will not object in politics. I
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 83 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 will protect you in politics. I will not object. Personally I will not
2 vote in favour, but for your sake and as he told you approve the
3 extension and that's better," because I felt I could sense the imminent
4 danger. And I told him despite his will -- I know that he did not want
5 to extend. I asked him despite his will to approve the extension. And I
6 remind that in a previous conversation I think to one newspaper or with
7 someone he had said, "I would rather have my hand cut off than approve
8 the extension." But I told him for the sake of his physical safety to
9 approve the extension because I knew very well what Bashar was capable of
10 and Bashar's group and gang were capable of. This is the conversation
11 that I had with Rafik Hariri when he returned from Damascus on 26 August
12 2004. I also told him, "I will not vote in favour and I will not approve
13 the extension, but I do understand your position."
14 Q. What did the Prime Minister say in response to your counsel?
15 A. I think that he said that he would be thinking about it, but I
16 think that at the same time while he was returning and -- over there he
17 received him for less than 15 minutes, and he did not allow him to sit
18 down. So the threat was very clear on behalf of Bashar towards
19 Rafik Hariri. I think that he was a little bit more comfortable but he
20 was under shock. He was under a great shock, because if we go back to
21 his discussion with Rustom Ghazaleh, his plan, his objective, was to
22 discuss the Lebanese situation, the several options available for the
23 presidency. He goes there and he receives a direct threat, a direct
24 threat. What else can he do? He returned. He was scared -- yes, of
25 course he was scared, but for his sake, for his interest, I advised him
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 84 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 to approve the extension, to avoid or to delay -- to delay what was
2 coming, the danger that was coming.
3 Q. I'd like to ask you in a little bit more detail about some of the
4 things that you said that the Prime Minister related to you. You said at
5 one point that the Prime Minister said that Bashar Al-Assad had told him,
6 "Lahoud is me and I am Lahoud." What did you understand that to mean?
7 A. I understood that the only person that represents me in Lebanon
8 is Emile Lahoud and that no one else can represent Syria in Lebanon. At
9 the same time Lahoud, as we say in Lebanon, he's my man in Lebanon, and
10 that I will not accept to have anyone else elected as a president of
11 Lebanon. This is what I understood.
12 Q. And the second thing I wanted to ask you was about the reference
13 to your role in the Druze community and the fact that there are others in
14 the Druze community. What did you interpret that as meaning?
15 A. I said earlier today that I am one of the leaders of this small
16 community or confession. I did not say that I was the first leader, one
17 of the leaders of the Druze community. But when Bashar Al-Assad says
18 that, "I also have my Druze supporters," this means that: "He can also
19 use the Druze to confront you, Walid Jumblatt." This is the message that
20 I understood from what Rafik Hariri conveyed to me. I think that this
21 was a clear threat to both Rafik Hariri and Walid Jumblatt.
22 Q. When you use the term "confront" as it was translated, what are
23 the -- what did you understand the implications of that to be for you?
24 Was this a political confrontation, physical confrontation, combination
25 of both? Did you have a sense based upon what the Prime Minister told
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 85 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 you of what it meant for you?
2 A. We cannot speak of a political confrontation without a physical
3 confrontation. You cannot have a political confrontation with the Syrian
4 regime that is only limited to the political aspect. It is a physical
5 also confrontation. This is what happened to my father when he was
6 opposed to the entry of the Syrian troops to Lebanon in 1977 and they
7 assassinated him. This is why I remembered my father when I was talking
8 to Rafik Hariri. I wanted to save Rafik Hariri in order to spare him
9 such a physical confrontation. I told him, "Go and approve the extension
10 of the term." As we say in Arabic, stay away from their anger and from
11 their malice or vice.
12 Q. But you had experienced the death of your own father and now you
13 were subject yourself to what you considered a direct threat again to
14 your safety, but nevertheless you chose to vote against the extension, as
15 you had done in the original election in 1998. Can you tell the
16 Trial Chamber why it was that in the face of a threat like that you still
17 considered it appropriate to vote no?
18 A. Because I was convinced that it was about time to achieve a
19 democratic and free Lebanon outside of the stranglehold of the Syrian
20 security apparatus in Lebanon that is liberated from Israel. It was
21 liberated from Israel but it was about time for Lebanon to rule itself,
22 to govern itself based on normal relations with Syria. It was a gradual
23 confrontation, as I said earlier, 1998, 2000, and 2004. That was the
24 culmination of my confrontation with the Syrian regime when I refused to
25 approve the extension of the term of President Lahoud. I made all the
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 86 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 possible calculations. In life sometimes you are -- you have no choice
2 but to make up your mind to take a decision. I took that decision and my
3 conscience is clear.
4 Q. The -- would it have been difficult or even possible without the
5 concurrence of you or -- and/or Rafik Hariri to achieve the necessary
6 number of votes for the constitutional amendment if you both opposed?
7 A. If we both opposed, the amendment of the constitution wouldn't
8 have been approved. That's why it was a direct threat from Bashar Assad
9 to Rafik Hariri. He told him, "You have to approve the extension." They
10 were aware of the number of MPs and their divisions inside the
11 Parliament, they knew everything.
12 Q. And at this stage of your political life and the vision that you
13 had for the country, it must have appeared to be a very significant
14 setback to have the extension of President Lahoud's term passed; is that
15 a fair assessment?
16 A. Of course because the extension will allow the continuation of
17 the Syrian stranglehold on all the Lebanese institutions, be it the army,
18 the military, the public administration, et cetera, in this way Lebanon
19 will not be able to achieve its independent status like all other
20 countries of the world.
21 Q. So the advice and guidance that you gave to the Prime Minister to
22 vote in favour of the extension was in a very significant way contrary to
23 what you ultimately wanted to achieve in Lebanon; is that correct?
24 A. That is correct. Very, very true, that's correct. However,
25 given that I knew the history of this regime, I was concerned for
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 87 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Rafik Hariri. I was afraid for his fate, and it's my right to be
2 concerned about the fate of a friend. I told him, "Approve the
3 extension. I will not disagree with you politically. I will understand
4 your position." As I said earlier, Rafik Hariri was my friend and our
5 friendship was much more precious than the political dimension, and I was
6 truly concerned for his fate.
7 Q. And in due course the Council of Ministers convenes and then
8 Parliament convenes and the extension is granted by September the 2nd.
9 Did you have any discussions with the Prime Minister after this initial
10 discussion on August 26th about what to do next, before the amendment was
11 ultimately approved of in Parliament?
12 A. I don't think that we discussed this. When he was visiting me at
13 my residence, we agreed on a certain plan. And after he left my house,
14 he went to his residence in the Lebanese mountains, in Faqra, where he
15 met some Lebanese politicians, including former minister and
16 MP Fares Bouiez, and later on the cabinet sent a draft law to the
17 Parliament for approval regarding the extension of the presidential term.
18 The ministers who represent the Democratic Gathering, that is, Minister
19 Abdullah Farhat and Ghazi Aridi resigned from the government, and later
20 on Resolution 1559 was passed by the Security Council.
21 After that, we attended a parliamentary session on the 3rd of
22 April, 2004, and those who voted -- the 3rd of September, 2004, and those
23 who voted in favour or against were 29. We were 18 MPs from the
24 Democratic Gathering and we were joined by representative from the Kataeb
25 or Phalangist party Antoine Ghanem and from the Future Bloc chaired by
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 88 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Ghattas Khoury was the one who voted against
2 the extension. He asked for an authorization from Rafik Hariri to vote
3 against the extension. We were 29 MPs who voted against and we were
4 called the list of honour.
5 JUDGE AKOUM: [Interpretation] Mr. Jumblatt, you said that
6 Ministers Abdullah Farhat and Ghazi Aridi resigned. Didn't also
7 Mr. Marwan Hamade and Mr. Fares Bouiez also resign from the government?
8 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Yes, Mr. Marwan Hamade and also
9 Mr. Fares Bouiez, but he was not a member of the Democratic Gathering.
10 The ones who were members of the Democratic Gathering were Marwan,
11 Abdullah, and Ghazi.
12 MR. CAMERON:
13 Q. In one of your last answers you said that at the time the
14 Prime Minister left your garden in Clemenceau to leave you had agreed
15 upon a certain plan. Previous to that, I'd understood you to say you
16 weren't -- you didn't know what the Prime Minister would do, he was going
17 to consider your advice. What was the plan that you had both
18 contemplated at the end of your meeting in Clemenceau, can you recall?
19 A. There was no plan. I gave him a piece of advice because I was
20 concerned about his life, I was worried about his life, and I said maybe
21 such an advice would save him from his destiny. There was no plan
22 whatsoever. I just told him, "I will support you in your political
23 decision. I shall not criticize you in politics if they say Rafik Hariri
24 has changed his mind after he had initially said that he would totally
25 oppose the extension." He said, "I will think about it. On the one hand
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 89 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 he was relatively reassured, relaxed, but on the other hand he was also
2 upset because he knew what the future will bring in terms of problems
3 when he will approve the extension of Lahoud's term.
4 Q. Well, this is a bit of a blow for you, the fact that this has
5 occurred. And in respect of your own party and the larger
6 Democratic Gathering, what kinds of things do you start to think about,
7 given the fact that this new landscape has been imposed upon you, one
8 which you hadn't expected necessarily?
9 A. This was a new chapter in the political life of Lebanon that
10 would pave the way for new alliances. After the voting on the extension
11 of the presidential term, we held many meetings at my residence in
12 Clemenceau and also followed by other meetings, so-called Bristol first,
13 Bristol second meeting, et cetera. We were like a beehive trying to work
14 day and night in order to establish a national Lebanese front that would
15 confront the compulsory extension of President Lahoud's term that was
16 imposed on us.
17 JUDGE BRAIDY: [Interpretation] Mr. Jumblatt, I would like to ask
18 you based on your analysis and on your wide experience, would
19 Resolution 1559 have been passed if the extension was not adopted? In
20 other terms, can we say that Resolution 1559 is closely linked to the
21 extension of the presidential term? And my second question is the
22 following: Did Prime Minister Hariri tell you later on that there was an
23 attempt by many countries to interfere in order to block the extension of
24 the presidential term and that this was linked also to a freezing or
25 blocking Resolution 1559?
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 90 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Resolution 1559 was linked to the
2 extension of the presidential term in order to call for the full
3 withdrawal of the Syrian troops from Lebanon, disarming the Lebanese and
4 non-Lebanese militias. Resolution 1559 is very clear. Hariri was
5 accused later on of taking part in drafting Resolution 1559. Some went
6 also to say that he drafted the resolution in his residence in Sardinia
7 along with Marwan Hamade and Ghassan Salameh. In fact, Resolution 1559
8 had nothing to do with Prime Minister Hariri or the Lebanese. That's why
9 later on both Hariri and myself returned to the Taif Agreement and
10 reiterated our attachment to the Taif Agreement, and this is also what
11 you will see in all the statements issued by Qornet-Chehwan, by me, by
12 Prime Minister Hariri during his meeting with Walid Moallem. We were
13 keen on implementing the Taif Agreement and we rejected Resolution 1559.
14 JUDGE BRAIDY: [Interpretation] For the sake of further
15 clarification, if the extension of President Lahoud was not adopted,
16 would Resolution 1559 be adopted?
17 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] Of course not. I think that if the
18 extension of President Lahoud's term was not adopted, we would have never
19 seen Resolution 1559 see the light or voted. This was an international
20 resolution that was imposed on us and it had nothing to do with our own
21 plan.
22 JUDGE BRAIDY: [Interpretation] I would like to know whether you
23 know or not and whether Prime Minister Hariri told you about any attempt
24 to freeze the extension or any kind of settlement to convince the Syrians
25 to abandon the idea of extending the presidential term, in return he
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 91 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 would also seek to freeze Resolution 1559. This is what Prime Minister
2 Rafik Hariri told Walid Moallem. Did he discuss this with you?
3 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] No, he did not discuss it with me,
4 but on that day, on the 26th of August, 2004, Prime Minister Hariri
5 wished to discuss with Bashar Assad all the various possibilities,
6 options. But the answer was firm, was sharp, it was a threat.
7 Bashar Assad did not allow Rafik Hariri to discuss anything. He
8 threatened him very clearly and the result was that the cabinet adopted
9 the amendment, sent it to the Parliament, and this was followed by
10 Resolution 1559.
11 JUDGE AKOUM: [Interpretation] But on the 26th of August, 2004,
12 Resolution 1559 hadn't been issued yet. So how can President Assad
13 discuss such a resolution that was not issued yet? Were there anyone
14 telling Assad that such a resolution is being considered by the Security
15 Council?
16 THE WITNESS: [Interpretation] This is my own opinion. I think
17 that such a resolution needs some time of preparation and consultations
18 between the major powers; namely, the Security Council members. I think
19 that someone from these Security Council members might have told the
20 Syrian authorities or Bashar Assad that something is being prepared. Who
21 did it, I cannot answer. But he was very clear when he said to
22 Rafik Hariri that if Chirac, meaning your friend, Rafik Hariri, so if
23 Chirac wants me to leave Lebanon, to withdraw from Lebanon, I shall break
24 Lebanon over your head. So I think that someone from the major Security
25 Council members might have told the Syrian regime and the Syrian
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 92 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 president.
2 MR. CAMERON: Just as a follow-up to your question. You may
3 recall that through the evidence of Marwan Hamade there were two
4 documents that were introduced that were submissions by both Lebanon
5 under the signature of Jean Obeid and Syria about the proposed
6 Resolution 1559, and I think one was dated either the 28th or the 29th of
7 August and the other one may have been the 1st. I'm not exactly sure of
8 the days, but it was by the end of August certainly both Syria and
9 Lebanon had prepared submissions to the UN Security Council about their
10 views about the propriety of passing Resolution 1559.
11 JUDGE AKOUM: Thank you. Thank you. It seems that they asked
12 them to make submissions on the draft before issuing it.
13 MR. CAMERON: I think that was the case in light of the content
14 of the letters, yes.
15 Q. May I ask, Mr. Jumblatt, prior to the extension of
16 President Lahoud, what were your relations with the group that you
17 referred to a moment ago as Qornet-Chehwan?
18 A. They were excellent. They were excellent because these
19 relations, the meeting -- the conversion started in 2001 when the
20 Patriarch Sfeir came to the mountains, to Mokhtara, and we had this
21 historic reconciliation to forget the -- and heal the wounds of the civil
22 war which started in the 1970s and stayed up until 1991. The relations
23 were excellent, they were excellent and they became even closer
24 subsequently in order to widen the scope of the confrontation, the
25 Lebanese confrontation to the extension of President Lahoud's term.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 93 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 MR. CAMERON: If I could have the witness shown the document that
2 appears at 74 in the Arabic and 75 in the English. It's a document
3 describing in the context the date of 4th of September, 2004, and it was
4 provided to the investigators of the OTP within a statement of
5 Hani Hammoud who is yet scheduled to testify. He indicated he was
6 familiar with the declarations of the various groups and enclosed this
7 particular one. The document was deemed admissible by the
8 Trial Chamber's decision of the 13th of April, 2015, under the number
9 F1901 and appears in the Prosecution motion F1791 at annex A, row 122.
10 The title of the document, which is at ERN 60301198, is "Accord of
11 Qornet-Chehwan Gathering."
12 Q. And if you could just look at the screen, Mr. Jumblatt, it
13 indicates the following in the first paragraph:
14 "On 4 September 2004, Qornet-Chehwan gathering held a
15 'extraordinary' meeting at the summer residence of the Maronite Patriarch
16 in Diman. After having met with his holiness Patriarch Mar Nasrallah
17 Boutros Sfeir, the gathering issued the following accord ..."
18 Just stopping there. You indicated that your relations with
19 Qornet-Chehwan were on good terms. Were you aware of their general
20 activities and meetings and developing philosophy about their vision for
21 Lebanon?
22 A. Since Patriarch Sfeir and in the summer of 2004 released his
23 famous appeal calling for the full and complete withdrawal of Syrian
24 forces from Lebanon, there was a group that was gathered around
25 Patriarch Sfeir and it was called the Qornet-Chehwan Gathering. And as I
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 94 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 said, we have met with Patriarch Sfeir and with this group and we agreed
2 on the necessity of respecting Taif. This is what we said. What they
3 asked for was the full withdrawal of the Syrians, unconditional
4 withdrawal, but the final objective for both of us was to achieve a full
5 and complete Syrian withdrawal.
6 Q. In this particular document some other principles are set out
7 over and above the withdrawal of Syrian troops. I wanted to take you to
8 two or three paragraphs and ask you about your understanding of them and
9 whether they were consistent with your group. The second paragraph reads
10 the following:
11 "The Gathering regarded the historical call issued by the
12 Maronite Synod on the 1st of September, 2004, as constituent charter for
13 future Lebanon. It is no coincidence that its issuance be on the 84th
14 anniversary of the declaration of Greater Lebanon State, asserting that
15 it was a declaration of 'the restoration of our state, defend our
16 dignity, and salvation of our nation.'"
17 And down to the fourth paragraph it says the following:
18 "The Gathering stated that the darkness deemed on the country was
19 broken in the past few days by a bright light formed through the full
20 Lebanese consensus, Muslims and Christians, on maintaining the Republic
21 fundamentals and non-infringement of the Constitution and
22 non-disregarding the state fundamentals and democratic system.
23 "Converging attitudes of all the regions and Lebanese families on
24 condemning the amendment of the Constitution, in contrast with the
25 Constitution, form our new national pact and a solid Lebanese safety net
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 95 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 in the face of the impasse they are pushing us to."
2 Now, can you tell me or tell the Trial Chamber when this accord
3 of the Qornet-Chehwan Gathering states that:
4 " ... darkness deemed on the country was broken in the past few
5 days by a bright light formed through the full Lebanese consensus,
6 Muslims and Christians ..."
7 Do you have an understanding of what the Qornet-Chehwan was
8 referring to?
9 A. I think that they were referring to our refusal, our refusal to
10 extend the term at Parliament. This is how I explained this statement.
11 When we refused, in addition to one representative of Al Mustaqbal
12 movement, a representative of Rafik Hariri who was Ghattas Khoury, in
13 addition to an important group of Christian and Muslim MPs, when we
14 refused this extension, in their opinion that was the beginning of the
15 independence of Lebanon. As the Greater Lebanon was declared 48 years
16 ago in 1920, they considered this to be the second declaration of a
17 Greater Lebanon done this way. This is my explanation.
18 Q. And do you know whether the Prime Minister had a cordial
19 relationship with the members of the Qornet-Chehwan during this period of
20 time?
21 A. I'm not fully aware of this. He had acceptable relations with
22 some and with the others perhaps there was a rupture of relations, but
23 with time and because of this impasse and deadlock that we found
24 ourselves in, the problem of the extension, the relations between
25 Prime Minister Hariri and Qornet-Chehwan grew closer until later on
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 96 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 members of Al Mustaqbal movement joined the Bristol three meeting, namely
2 Ghattas Khoury and Bassel Fuleihan, they joined Bristol three gathering
3 as official representatives of Prime Minister Hariri, and that was a
4 wider gathering that included the Qornet-Chehwan Gathering in addition to
5 others.
6 MR. CAMERON: [Microphone not activated]
7 THE INTERPRETER: Microphone, please.
8 MR. CAMERON: I'd like to ask that this particular document be
9 made the next exhibit, please, which I understand to be P423.
10 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Can I just ask you to clarify whether we
11 actually declared it admissible or only added it to the exhibit list?
12 I'm getting conflicting information from the Chamber's legal staff and
13 what you said. Can that just be checked?
14 MR. CAMERON: We can check that if you give us a moment.
15 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Is this the decision of the 13th of April,
16 decision on Prosecution motion to amend its exhibit list and Oneissi
17 Defence request to stay the proceedings? If so, at paragraph 22, I think
18 we referred to it, and our disposition was to allow you to -- allow the
19 Prosecution leave to amend its exhibit list.
20 MR. CAMERON: I do apologize. That clearly, if you have the
21 decision before you, was what was granted. So if I could still
22 nevertheless, in light of what has been described by Mr. Jumblatt, ask
23 that it nevertheless be the next exhibit.
24 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: It can be described as a statement of the
25 Qornet-Chehwan Gathering that Mr. Mohammed Hammoud provided to the
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 97 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 Prosecution during an interview on the 10th of October, 2014.
2 The Prosecution seeks to admit it into evidence. Is there any
3 objection from the Defence? Given that Mr. Jumblatt has already given
4 his evidence on it, it might be a little difficult -- no, there's no
5 objection. It will be Exhibit P423.
6 MR. CAMERON: The next document that I'd like to take the witness
7 to, please, appears at position 20 in the Arabic and 19 in the English in
8 the Prosecution's evidence queue. It contains the ERN range from
9 D0410762 to D0410772. It's a press release issued by the United Nations
10 Information Centre dated at its heading the 6th of September, 2004. And
11 I understand and hope that I am correct that this was deemed admissible
12 pursuant to the Trial Chamber's decision of the 3rd of February, 2015,
13 which is decision F1841, and it appears in Prosecution's motion under
14 Rule 154 dated the 21st of October, 2014, at annex A1.2, row 152, and is
15 listed in annex B, row 224.
16 Q. Mr. Jumblatt --
17 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Let me give it an exhibit number before we
18 go on. We'll make that Exhibit P424.
19 MR. CAMERON: Thank you.
20 Q. I'd like to take you to some passages in this particular
21 document, Mr. Jumblatt, if I may. The first is in the first paragraph of
22 the press review which is dated the 6th of September, 2004, quite shortly
23 after the period of time involving the passage of Resolution 1559 and the
24 extension of President Lahoud. The following paragraph appears:
25 "The Lebanese government of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is headed
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 98 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 for a reshuffle or a total change following a threatened withdrawal from
2 the cabinet of three ministers belonging to Druze leader Walid Jumblatt's
3 coalition known as the Democratic Gathering. The bloc is due to meet
4 today to announce its position on the controversial extension of
5 President Emile Lahoud's term in office which it opposed, An-Nahar and
6 others reported Monday. The bloc's three ministers in government include
7 notably Minister of Economy Marwan Hamade, Culture Minister Ghazi Aridi,
8 and Abdullah Farhat, Minister of the Displaced. In case of a walk out,
9 the cabinet would have to be reshuffled or changed all together. Some
10 reports said the government would resign all together and a new one would
11 be formed under Hariri."
12 Now, can I ask you, Mr. Jumblatt, whether you had conversations
13 with the Prime Minister about your intention to ask your three ministers
14 in government to withdraw and why it was that you thought that that
15 position was necessary?
16 A. I did not discuss with Prime Minister Hariri the issue of the
17 resignation of Marwan Hamade, Ghazi Aridi, or Abdullah Farhat, but this
18 is a position that is aligned with my basic position which is to refuse
19 the extension. There's is nothing more than that.
20 Q. In this period of time were you talking with the Prime Minister
21 about the fact that you would not support the government as it was
22 presently constituted? Was he aware of what decisions you were about to
23 make in the political realm that would affect his government?
24 A. Of course he was aware, but perhaps he thought that through the
25 extension he would be able to gain some time and maybe perhaps through
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 99 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 the extension he could change the Syrian position towards him. Perhaps.
2 Maybe these were his calculations. I cannot tell the future, but my
3 position was to refuse the extension but I never criticized him. And as
4 I promised him on the 26th of August, 2004, I promised him that I would
5 not criticize him, but I cannot participate in a government that asks for
6 the extension.
7 Q. So there's a gulf between your position which is -- you cannot
8 support the extension and the Prime Minister's extension that there may
9 be a way to progress somehow given the state of affairs, is that an
10 accurate way to put it, during this period of time?
11 A. That's right, we can use these terms. Perhaps he was trying to
12 change the circumstances surrounding the extension. I say "perhaps," but
13 the experiences showed later on that he had failed to do so.
14 Q. And your position here seems to be crystallized in part in the
15 second paragraph of this press review when it says:
16 "Jumblatt has in the meantime rejected calls by President Emile
17 Lahoud to reconcile with the opposition by 'opening a new page' and
18 'forgetting about the past,' An-Nahar, Al-Hayat, and As-Sfeir and others
19 reported. Speaking after a meeting with Prime Minister Rafik Hariri on
20 Sunday, Jumblatt said: 'I'm not concerned with such talk.'"
21 Is that an accurate reflection of your public in this period of
22 time?
23 A. That's right, that's right, my position was clear. I will not
24 answer any calls made by Lahoud regarding turning a new page with the
25 opposition for the simple reason is that my basic position since 1998
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Witness: Walid Jumblatt PRH-684 (Open Session) Page 100 Examination by Mr. Cameron
1 until 2000, until 2004 is to oppose Lahoud and what Lahoud represented in
2 Lebanon.
3 Q. But there seems to be a suggestion in this paragraph that there
4 was an overture to you by Lahoud to join with him somehow. A, was there
5 such an overture; and B, do you recall how it was made?
6 A. I don't think that this was something that I could call an
7 overture. After the threats made by Bashar, no matter what Lahoud says
8 he is a dummy in the hands of Bashar, a puppet. It was simply a
9 political game, nothing more than that.
10 Q. Even under the guise of a -- or as an orchestrated part of a
11 political game, was there an overture of at least form, if not substance,
12 made to you by President Lahoud or those in connection with him?
13 A. I confirm again and I repeat, my hostility towards
14 President Lahoud, given that he was a military man and he was a tool in
15 the hands of the Syrians, one more statement or less statement would not
16 change anything to my position.
17 Q. If I could take you to the next page of the document which
18 appears at ERN D0410763, please. We have under Lahoud well-wishers -- or
19 the heading of Lahoud well-wishers the text:
20 "Lahoud's well-wishers who flocked to the presidential palace in
21 Baabda over the weekend were limited to the ministers and deputies who
22 supported the extension option and popular delegations that were put up
23 for the occasion. The main absentees were the Maronite deputies and the
24 Maronite clergy, the Democratic Gathering MPs, and many deputies who had
25 voted in favour of the extension but did not want to congratulate the
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Procedural Matters (Open Session) Page 101
1 president, such as the members of premier Hariri's bloc."
2 Now during this period of time was there -- was it being
3 discussed publicly that the Prime Minister's vote on the extension in
4 favour of the amendment had not been done of his own free will?
5 A. Everyone knew that he was compelled to approve the extension
6 because of the threat by the Syrian regime and the Syrian president. It
7 was not a secret. But within the realm of the political game, some
8 people accepted the extension and others did not, such as the
9 Qornet-Chehwan Gathering members and the Democratic Gathering members.
10 Rafik Hariri had no option but to accept the extension of the
11 presidential term of President Lahoud.
12 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Is there anything else on that document this
13 afternoon, Mr. Cameron?
14 MR. CAMERON: Yes, there is but --
15 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Emphasis on the words "this afternoon."
16 MR. CAMERON: There is something else in the document, but I'm
17 entirely content to come to it tomorrow.
18 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: All right, let's do that. I've got a --
19 there's a couple of administrative -- there's one administrative and one
20 short decision we have to deliver.
21 Mr. Jumblatt, that completes your evidence for today. Thank you
22 very much for coming. Just a brief caution, it's the same as we give all
23 other witnesses, which is between now and tomorrow when you return please
24 don't discuss your evidence with anyone else. I know you knew I was
25 about to say that to you and I know you won't.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Ruling (Open Session) Page 102
1 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
2 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Now, Mr. Cameron, the first matter is the
3 redactions. Do you have any news for us in -- what the Prosecution's
4 response has been to the Trial Chamber's -- I think we asked you to visit
5 the redaction issue.
6 [The witness stands down]
7 MR. CAMERON: Yes. As I understand it, this -- there was an
8 overlap between a general motion in respect of redactions under 115 and
9 then three particular documents. And we're in the process of doing the
10 overall review of the redactions and we can give these three documents
11 the highest priority, and there's no reason why in the coming days we
12 can't have made complete decisions on the three documents.
13 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: We would urge you to take a very liberal
14 approach to your view of these three particular documents. The Chamber
15 has reviewed them and it appears that the Prosecution may have been a
16 little bit overly cautious in the redactions they sought from the
17 Pre-Trial Judge in the first instance, but things of course have changed
18 since then.
19 MR. CAMERON: Yes. I'll consider very carefully what you said.
20 Thank you.
21 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Thank you, Mr. Cameron.
22 We also have to deliver a brief decision which is the following,
23 relates to the Legal Representative for the Victims.
24 In a motion of the 15th of April, 2015, the Legal Representative
25 for the Victims requested the Trial Chamber, under Rule 133 of the
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Procedural Matters (Open Session) Page 103
1 Tribunal's Rules of Procedure and Evidence, to vary the terms of the
2 protective measures granted to participating victims V047 and V051 to:
3 "1. Formally recognize disclosure of their identities as
4 participating victims to each other, that is, tell each other that they
5 are victims.
6 "2. Permit their simultaneous access to the private victims
7 gallery during the proceedings, that is, to let them sit together in the
8 gallery."
9 The two victims in question have provided written consent to the
10 variation sought. No parties filed a response. The Trial Chamber
11 considers that the requested variation of protective measures is
12 justified as the two participating victims are immediate family members
13 and have chosen to share this information, that is, that they are
14 participating victims, with each other voluntarily and independently.
15 It's a necessary and proportionate variation. The Trial Chamber
16 therefore grants the variation as requested by the Legal Representative
17 for the Victims. That completes the ruling.
18 And, Mr. Cameron, one slight correction to the record. The
19 Chamber's legal staff pointed out that the last document, Exhibit P424,
20 the UNIIIC press review was actually declared admissible in
21 Trial Chamber's decision F1802 entitled: "Prosecution Motion for
22 Admission into Evidence of 485 Documents," that's dated the 30th of
23 December, 2014, and we'd appreciate if -- there were so many documents
24 there that it's quite easy to confuse one decision with another in that
25 respect. So that completes the proceedings. No need to apologize.
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PUBLIC Official Transcript Procedural Matters (Open Session) Page 104
1 MR. CAMERON: No, I was not going to. I was going to fall on my
2 sword again because apparently it was also the subject of the request by
3 the Oneissi Defence team for certification for appeal, but what I'd like
4 to do is get to the bottom of that and the other documents before I
5 return to you tomorrow.
6 PRESIDING JUDGE RE: Much appreciated, Mr. Cameron.
7 We will, as notified to the parties, commence at 9.30 tomorrow
8 morning. Unless there is anything further from the parties or
9 participants, the court is adjourned until tomorrow.
10 --- Whereupon the hearing adjourned at 4.27 p.m.
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