M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: I interviewed Geagea... They hinted to us that arresting him alive would be a burden... President Hafez al-Assad asked Are you the one that everyone has complained about? - PART EIGHT
Ghassan Charbel Al-Hayat - 12/07/05//
Al-Hayat interviews the man who came to Lebanon's Sûreté Générale from the domain of intelligence, and was at the center of decision-making, and the center of the storm . . . (8)
In this segment, the former Director General of Sûreté Générale, Major General Jamil el Sayyed, discusses the arrest of Dr. Samir Geagea, Geagea's trial, and other events.
Here is the text of Part 8.
Al-Hayat: When did you become assistant director of Army Intelligence?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: In August 1991.
Al-Hayat: Did Prime Minister Hariri try to remove you from your post during your tenure in Army Intelligence?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: I used to hear frequently that he complained to Syria about me, as others did. I was the assistant director of Army Intelligence and was subject to a certain hierarchy; I wasn't "in business for myself." In the Army, no one can do this, i.e. act independently. The Army Command holds officers accountable if they make mistakes, and the Cabinet holds the Army Command responsible if it makes mistakes. They would jump up to complain about me directly. In their dispute with General Lahoud, they considered me the link in the chain that they could strike at. They would accuse me of orchestrating the media to oppose their policies. Every time I greeted a journalist or writer they would accuse me.
Al-Hayat: You're giving the impression that you were quite innocent, which is not a trait of intelligence officials.
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: I'm not an angel, but I'm not a devil. I behave responsibly and take responsibility for my actions. I had wide ties with the media and have many friends in this sector.
It's not a matter of being innocent. I mentioned to you my understanding of the media and how to deal with it. When an analytical article appears in a certain newspaper, Jamil Sayyed is accused of being behind it. It's impossible for me to reveal state secrets. They would complain about political attacks and they thought that I was able to stop them. They believed that a part of my job required me to perform plastic surgery on ugliness, to use my influence and my friendships to make the ugly parts of the State look beautiful. Personally, I didn't consider this to be one of my tasks. Some of them accused me of making them look ugly in the media. The media isn't stupid; let it see something wrong and reveal what is hidden.
Al-Hayat: Did Speaker Nabih Berri try to remove you from your post?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: All the reasons are similar, in addition to the fact that political leaders in Lebanon are used to having state employees "belong" to them. I don't have this mentality. It's not normal and it produces hostility. Each leader wants to make you "his man," protecting you and benefiting from your services for the sake of his leadership. In Lebanon, you obtain immunity of you belong to a political leader, especially if you're a state employee.
Al-Hayat: What's the secret of your strength in Damascus?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: I don't have any power in Damascus, other than it always a coincidence that when a certain party attacked me, another party would confront that party. I benefited from the contradictions as I continued in my post. They never agreed to get rid of me; if they had I wouldn't have stayed on.
Al-Hayat: Did you meet with President Hafiz al-Assad?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: Not in a face-to-face meeting. But I accompanied President Lahoud on his first visit to Damascus following his election. He introduced me to President al-Assad, saying, "Major General Jamil Sayyed."
President al-Assad looked at me and said, "Are you the one that everyone has complained about?"
Presidents al-Assad and Lahoud laughed, and this appeared in the photo that was published in the newspapers, where President al-Assad is shaking President Lahoud's hand and holding my hand with his left. This photo, published by an-Nahar newspaper, cost me considerably in terms of animosity and incitement against me. It raised sensitivities and some of those around President Lahoud exploited it to hint that President al-Assad was dealing with us as equals. In fact, when President al-Asad took my hand, he was trying to hear my name correctly from President Lahoud, since al-Assad didn't hear the name well the first time. He leaned closer to hear the name one more time, and that was the moment in which he appeared holding the president's hand and mine.
Al-Hayat: Didn't you accompany President Hrawi on his visit to Damascus?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: I served with President Hrawi for about four months, when I was responsible for his security.
The security situation in 1990 obliged us to keep movement and visits secret, including those in Syria. I accompanied him twice but didn't take part in the meetings. He would inform me about them on the way back. He didn't keep many things from me, and he would often ask for my opinion about certain expressions that he considered cryptic, and which were discussed in these meetings. President Hrawi would joke about these things, saying, "Boy, you need a Moroccan fortune-teller to understand these expressions - you explain them to me."
Al-Hayat: Do you have blood on your hands?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: No. I should add that Lebanon, during 15 years of civil war, was an open arena for whoever wanted to do such things, or play the game of bloodletting. At the time, I was a first lieutenant in the Army. If we go back to my past, present and future, you'll find that I was unknown in the Lebanese war; I never took part in a civil war or any bloodletting in my life. There are various schools when it comes to security work. One school is that of killing, another is of being harsh, and another involves dealing with things and "absorbing" them. The school to which I have belonged since the beginning, one that I use in instructing all of my officers and men, maintains that security remains successful to the point where it causes bloodshed. At that point, it fails. When consolidating security requires you to shed blood, at that point you've gone beyond the logic of security and entered the logic of war. Imposing security does not require blood, except in openly armed encounters between military forces acting openly. But when security organizations require bloodshed as part of imposing security, it's an expression of impotence or their weakness in achieving the State's goals through legitimate means. When the mukhabarat (security organizations) resort to the game of bloodshed, they lose their immunity, legitimacy and strength. In short, they become a security "gang" and not an institution. In a country like Lebanon, the question is "how long can you keep a secret?" During the war, the militias were unable to keep their killing secret, so what would be the case of an official state security institution or mixed institutions, where all the sects are represented? No matter how smart you claim to be and how many precautions you take, today's secret will be revealed tomorrow.
Al-Hayat: Can you explain, in practical terms, the school of security work that you believe in?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: In 1998, when I moved from Army Intelligence to the head of Sûreté Générale, there was a farewell meeting for me, with the Intelligence Directorate's officers on hand. In my address, I said, "You ask me about summing up my experience in security, so I'll do so in a few words: "Beware of having secrets that you are embarrassed about, or that you're afraid to reveal; let yourselves have the State's secrets that you're not allowed to reveal. Beware of getting involved in what you consider a secret that you are afraid or embarrassed about." This means that when you're an intelligence officer in the State, your presence guarantees your protection and immunity temporarily, but when you leave your post, you become exposed and these secrets will hurt you. Imagine that I was outside the State and I had such embarrassing or frightening secrets - what would my life be like? Here, I should mention that when the leader of the Lebanese Forces, Dr. Samir Geagea, was arrested by Army Intelligence based on a decision by Judge Mounir Honein, a leading state official summoned Brigadier General Michel Rahbani, the head of Army Intelligence. The official blamed Rahbani for arresting Geagea, in the belief that his situation wouldn't be treated by an arrest. But we insisted on taking the legal path in treating these issues, and others.
Al-Hayat: Who was this official?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: I leave this for a later time, when I can discuss some events in detail. But Brigadier General Rahbani is alive and well and can attest to this incident.
Al-Hayat: On what basis did you arrest Geagea?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: To make a correction, it's said that we detained him and did not arrest him. Detention is a legal situation and arrest is an arbitrary one. The matter began with the bombing of the (Saydet al-Najat) church and investigations were opened. These investigations led to Judicial Investigator Joseph Freiha arriving at leads for another crime, which was the assassination of Dany Chamoun and his family. Since Judge Mounir Honein had been appointed as the judicial investigator for that crime, he took over probing the leads further, which made the Dany Chamoun case move more quickly. This required the issuing of an order to detain (Geagea) by Judge Honein.
Al-Hayat: Did you and Geagea have a dialogue before his detention?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: There was a dialogue with Geagea in 1993, which I handled on behalf of the Army Command. The journalist Johnny Mnayyer was the go-between, as one of Geagea's supporters and admirers. We discussed the handover of weapons and dissolving (Geagea's) militias. The Army "owned" the street in the security sense and militias could not share in this. The dialogue with him was positive and we made efforts to convince him to be responsive. During our final sessions, Geagea asked for a period of time to review things and then we had a later meeting, after he contacted us. He said, "You in the Army are telling me to turn in my weapons and dissolve the militia, and you explained your position. However, I've concluded that there are two States in Lebanon. The security State, which tells me to hand over the weapons and dissolve the militia, and the political State, which is advising me to the opposite. Which of them should I believe?"
I told him, "I don't want to talk about two States. I'm telling you that there are people who are lying to you, and there are those that you can believe - we're being honest with you." After a discussion about this, Geagea decided to set down a program of turning over weapons; this stalled when shortcomings were discovered and there were weapons unaccounted for. At this time and afterward, the Army continued to disarm militias through summonses and raids. Then, the Saydet Najat bombing in Jounieh took place, surprising everyone. Geagea held a news conference the next day and said, "This time, I don't accept Israel being accused. I don't accept keeping the perpetrator's identity unknown. The State is disarming Christians and is powerless to protect them. So pardon us, let them get serious . . ." The media carried the news conference and his remarks were considered a call for the Army to leave the eastern (Christian) area and for security to be autonomous, like earlier intifadas. When I heard the news conference, I telephoned Johnny Mnayyer and told him that Geagea was hinting that he was exploiting the crime and was turning himself into a suspect, which he didn't need to do.
Geagea's detention didn't take place immediately, as I said; there were about two months between the bombing and his detention. This was after the judiciary began judicial investigations; two judges well known for their abilities and competence questioned Geagea.
Al-Hayat: Can you say who bombed the church?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: There was a trial and the verdict blamed members of the LF but found Samir Geagea innocent, due to doubts and the lack of evidence. Today, things in Lebanon have changed and whoever suspects that the church bombing was fabricated can employ judicial measures and hold a retrial. The court that issued the verdicts wasn't a military tribunal. It was the Judicial Council and it's the State's highest penal court, headed by Judge Philippe Khairallah.
Al-Hayat: Are you sure that it wasn't fabricated?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: Man, if a case was fabricated, the head of Army Intelligence, Michel Rahbani, would no longer be in his post and would no longer be alive. The Syrians left Lebanon and are no longer around to protect him. No one is protecting anyone. The trial wasn't a security trial; we gathered information about this matter and we were unable to fabricate it. Geagea was found innocent of the church bombing and guilty in other cases. As I said, perhaps Geagea's lawyer can ask for a retrial and I have no problem with this; neither do those who participated in the investigations and the verdict.
Al-Hayat: Did you see Geagea in his cell?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: No, not at all. There was no reason to.
Al-Hayat: During your era, was there torture at the Army's Intelligence Directorate?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: There are no "eras" when it comes to intelligence. There are officials, and hierarchy. I was the assistant director, to Brigadier General Michel Rahbani and we were in terms of hierarchy attached to the Army Command. The Intelligence Directorate had an Investigations Branch, and procedures were followed. There's a big difference between harshness and torture. An investigation is harsh in and of itself and psychological torture for whoever is subject to it, even in front of a civilian judge. Investigations are usually harsher during the initial phases, and this is true around the world, with the US and European police, and elsewhere, as the suspect is under conditions of emotional and psychological pressure. However, there's a huge difference between an investigation that seeks the truth, and pressure is one of the ways to arrive at the truth, and an investigation that is aimed at hiding the facts and fabricating accusations or obtaining confessions by force. This doesn't happen in Lebanon because security is not a court, but the judicial officer working for a civilian judiciary.
Al-Hayat: Was Geagea subject to torture?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: Not at all, and he knows this. He was not subject to any physical violence.
Al-Hayat: Did President Hrawi support sending him out of the country?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: He didn't tell me this. I think he received advice to travel, but not from us. A Lebanese official later blamed us because we took him alive. One of our colleagues who headed a security body backed this idea in a report, in which he said that arresting Geagea would turn him into a Nelson Mandela.
Al-Hayat: Did they favor killing him?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: They hinted to us that arresting him alive would be a burden. Our answer was that the State's strength was derived from its legitimacy, and its legitimacy derived from a sound implementation of the law. Since you can detain anyone and remand him to court, in accordance with the law, when the person commits a crime, why would you resort to other methods that are an expression of weakness, and not strength? When one of the state security agencies gets involved in bloodshed, it loses its immunity and becomes a prisoner of this game, until (its acts are) revealed.
Al-Hayat: If you retry the Saydet Najat church bombing case, what will happen?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: There are no hidden files; all of them are present in the archives of the judiciary and the intelligence organizations. Retrying the case won't do us any harm because there are no hidden "stitches" - we behaved as the State and not as a gang.
Al-Hayat: It's said that you took a copy of the files at Sûreté Générale with you (when you left). Can a director general do this?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: What's the benefit of keeping files that you can't use? Any use of them would be a serious breach of the law.
Al-Hayat: You could keep them on CD-roms, for example.
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: Since you know that you can't use them, due to (adhering to) the minimum level of professional ethics, why take them? If you mean that when you have them, you can blackmail people, then you're the first one who's affected. Thank God, we don't follow the school of blackmail; we've been involved in security for more than two decades, and everyone is a witness to this. In the security domain, you obtain a lot of personal information. Have you ever heard of someone being blackmailed by the security bodies regarding a personal or private matter? Blackmail is evidence of weakness. The presence of security bodies should be taken into consideration, without blackmail being used. They usually take you into consideration when you don't believe in negotiation or compromise.
Al-Hayat: What about the person who has a "Syrian key"?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: What does a "Syrian key" mean?
Al-Hayat: For example, if (the last Syrian officer responsible for Lebanon) Rustom Ghazaleh intervenes, can you pursue an investigation?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: In my experience, I was never exposed to coercion in such a matter.
Al-Hayat: Your experience in Sûreté Générale was distinguished in terms of organization, transparency and preventing bribery, while accusations of corruption focus on the political class. However, the Bank al-Madina scandal was not treated as it should have; it was a case of flagrant plunder. How was the matter "swept up under the rug"?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: Actually, the Bank al-Madina case was not part of security investigations; it was with the Banking Control Commission, then the judiciary, then it returned to the Central Bank. The respected and acknowledged person who is guaranteeing this issue is Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh. Part of this case was handled according to Central Bank procedures regarding problem banks. The judiciary handled another part of the case, and it is still "alive." From time to time, you hear about lawsuits being filed about it.
Al-Hayat: If you open Bank al-Madina's records, there won't be anything on you?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: The facts about Bank al-Madina are with the Central Bank and the Banking Control Commission. They probably have lists with all the details. Everyone knows that we weren't involved in it.
Al-Hayat: The Bank al-Madina scandal has Lebanese and Syrian involvement. Didn't you think this scandal could lead people to wonder about the scope of corruption?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: There are many accusations like Bank al-Madina, such as those involving the Ministries of Electricity, Health, and Telecommunications, the Council of the South, the Central Fund for the displaced, and others. All of these created a climate of accusations of state corruption. There is no Lebanese or Syrian involvement in these scandals; there is sometimes the involvement of Lebanese or Syrians, and these people are the exceptions. They don't represent Lebanon or Syria's policy but rather the exploitation by some of their positions to reap individual gains and benefits at the expense of politics and the expense of the reputation of Lebanon and Syria.
Al-Hayat: Why doesn't the judiciary act if there are lists of corruption (activities)?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: In Lebanon, there is no political regime. It's a regime of politicians. A political-sectarian configuration controls the country and the names change from one era to the next. This group of people is in harmony over the idea of dominating the State. When the State tries to dominate this group, it cooperates and works to do away with the State. In such a system, the meanings of right and wrong are lost, what's correct and unjust get all mixed up. It's difficult to distinguish between them because the sectarian and political costume is ready to cover any imbalance. If the corrupt person is a Shiite, the Shiite political and sectarian protection goes to work in the media, to the degree that the judiciary is accused of targeting the sect. The same for the Druze, the Sunnis, the Maronites, the Catholics, and the Orthodox. The nature of the current political constellation prevents seeing anyone held accountable because the sectarian cover plays its role and calls it political targeting. The crisis of the country is greater than Bank al-Madina. There's a crisis of the regime. The Taif Accord left the country with many heads. The Lebanese regime has not had a serious opportunity to practice accountability. However honest the judiciary, it's in an unenviable position, especially when the matters it looks into have big dimensions.
The situation of state institutions is similar regarding the complaint about the nature of the regime and the shares (of influence that are divided up). In such a climate one can't build state institutions, and not even security institutions, including the Army, which was only built up after the war thanks to Syrian-provided "immunity" (from political pressure). Now, Syria has left and the logic of "dividing up the pie" will extend to the security bodies, dividing them up for sects and political leaders. This will be a catastrophe for security. Security that has a political and sectarian loyalty is not security, and doesn't provide security. I'm convinced of this and I have no personal affiliation.
Al-Hayat: But you had Syrian immunity.
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: Just as President Emile Lahoud used Syrian immunity to create the Army, I've used it to build Sûreté Générale. Can anyone deny this? I didn't exploit Syrian immunity to commit offenses at Sûreté Générale, although the discretionary power of the director general can let him benefit from millions (of dollars). However, I came and turned it into a public service. I used Syrian immunity to protect the institution; everybody around has acknowledged this.
After the Syrian withdrawal, everyone pounced on the security (bodies) in order to receive his share. Security is a common public right and it must remain above narrow political and sectarian loyalties. Of course, security is under the orders of politics, i.e. the policy of the State and not that of politicians. Security bodies see crime as crime, and there's no such thing as half a crime with a Sunni, or one quarter of a crime with a Shiite, half a crime with a Maronite, and three-fourths of a crime with a Druze. When security is outside these principles it gets lost, and Lebanon is heading in that direction.
Al-Hayat: When was the first time you met President Bashar al-Assad? There's a picture of you with him, in military uniform.
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: This was the first time, in 1996. He was in a staff officer military course in Damascus, and Lebanese officers were taking part in it as well. I wasn't in the course, but some Lebanese officers wanted to have a thank-you ceremony for him as their comrade in the course, at the Officers' Club in Jounieh. General Lahoud tasked me with accompanying him during the lunch.
Al-Hayat: How many times have you visited Syria?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: President Lahoud sent me twice and I visited the last time when I left my position (at Sûreté Générale).
Al-Hayat: Wasn't it strange for President Bashar al-Assad to receive you on the last visit?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: It wasn't strange. That was loyalty and appreciation on the part of Syria. I have become a civilian and they were following the circumstances that Lebanon was experiencing. I am a person who they appreciate because of my reputation and what I did for Lebanese institutions. The visit was overblown in the media. I don't see what's strange about President Bashar al-Assad receiving me after I moved into civilian life. It's no secret that in Lebanon, most ambassadors bade me farewell in a gesture of appreciation, including the US and French ambassadors. States have their means of expression. Syria in particular is loyal and the al-Assad family are loyal people. Why should I be embarrassed about such a thing if Syria withdrew from Lebanon? Actually, it was a great honor for me for President al-Assad to make such a gesture.
Al-Hayat: On 14 March, did you expect that an event such as this (a demonstration of more than a million people against Syrian influence) would lead to a Syrian withdrawal?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: There was a slow transformation underway in Lebanon that would lead in the end to a Syrian withdrawal. Before UN Security Council Resolution 1559 (demanding a Syrian withdrawal) that there was a change in politics, because Lebanon was a means of pressuring Syria. It was known that the US and Israel had demands on Syria that it refused to meet. It was known that Resolution 1559 capped this pressure. Resolution 1559 was present in theory in the minds of those behind US policy in the region. It entered into written form at the same time as President Lahoud's extension. After the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri, Resolution 1559 was astride a galloping horse and nothing would be able to stop it. It had been moving slowly, but the assassination of Hariri led to putting Resolution 1559 on a flying horse, and it's still hovering. At that time, I knew that the magnitude of this crime was extraordinary, in all senses of the word. I thought that the countries of the world would get involved the very next day. The assassination produced a rapid dynamism for Resolution 1559, which could not be contained by Lebanon or Syria, since the accusations and conviction preceded the investigations.
Al-Hayat: Wasn't the State able to deal with the assassination in a better way?
M.G. Jamil el Sayyed: The magnitude of the crime was a great weight on the institution concerned with treating it, and it threw everyone into a state of confusion, including the judiciary and security agencies. When accusations were made (by the opposition), the confusion grew. When the spotlight was put on the crime scene, there was fear at the level of the judiciary and security agencies. Even the explosives experts from the Army and security agencies produced contradictory reports and they didn't dare submit them, out of a fear that they would contradict the report by the international committee; then, they would be accused of misleading the investigation. It was a very ugly atmosphere at the beginning, and accusations were coming in all directions - any investigator who went in a direction that they didn't like would be accused of misleading the investigation; if an investigator didn't act, he would be accused of negligence. There accusations made against the judiciary as well as the security bodies. The chief public prosecutor, Adnan Addoum, spoke at the time about the report by Australia's Interpol about the protest by six Lebanese pilgrims who found residue of explosives on two of their seats on the plane. The public prosecutor wanted to inform public opinion about this, answering the pressures that were on him - he ended up being accused of misleading the investigation and a concentrated attack campaign was launched against him.
Prosecutor Addoum didn't mislead anyone; he picked up a small lead, which in his view might have led somewhere. He wanted this lead to be serious, and produce a result, but he didn't just make up the fact that there were traces of TNT; Australia told us this. Addoum built on this in order to satisfy the public's need for certain details, but they criticized him and targeted him. He wasn't misleading anyone; he was talking about facts, but they (the leaders of the opposition) considered that accusing Islamists meant the case was deviating from the required path, because people wanted the accusation directed at Syria. If you mention Abu Adas (the Islamist who released a tape claiming responsibility for Hariri's murder) they'll think you're tampering with the investigation. If you talk about an Australian lead or explosives above ground, or a suicide bomber, or that there was no tunnel (under the blast site), they accuse you of misleading people and conspiring in the crime. MP Mohammed Qabbani said, "There's a tunnel and when the explosion happened, the seawater caught fire due to the presence of sodium."
Can seawater catch fire? For him, the seawater caught fire due to the presence of sodium . . . that's what they told him.
We should put things in their chronological context. Today, we're talking about thing calmly but at the time, who was bold enough to say that the explosion was above ground, or that there was no tunnel, or that there was a suicide bomber?
In short, the crime of the assassination of Hariri was "bigger" than the State; it's not surprising that we see shortcomings in the performance of the competent agencies because the crime was greater than their capacities.
Tomorrow: The final segment
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