Rifi’s Report Offers Insight into Kidnapping of Jassem Brothers by Salah Hajj
Internal Security Forces chief Maj. Gen. Ashraf Rifi’s investigation report on the kidnapping of Syrian opposition members reveals that the head of the Syrian embassy guard unit, First Lt. Salah Hajj, was the ringleader of the group that abducted the Jassem brothers.
An Nahar daily published on Tuesday the full report, which is based on witness testimony and telecommunications data.
Rifi said the son of former ISF chief Maj. Gen. Ali Hajj and four other men kidnapped the Jassem brothers from outside the Baabda Serail on Feb. 24 at 11:00 pm. They were driving two vehicles carrying ISF license plates put at the disposal of the Syrian embassy.
On that day, Jassem al-Jassem was set free after being held for distributing flyers. His brothers Ali and Shabib came to pick him up from the Serail and were not seen again.
The fourth brother, Ahmed al-Jassem, has also disappeared, the report said.
It also unveiled detailed information about the movements of the vehicles and mobile phone calls that Salah Hajj made with a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command ahead of handing him over the brothers in Yanta on the Lebanese-Syrian border.
According to the report, Hajj’s vehicle was seen in the area of Baabda immediately before and after the kidnapping. It was later seen heading towards Dahr al-Baidar and then to Yanta at around 1:47 am on Feb. 25.
The vehicle later returned to the area of Bar Elias and then to Mar Mikhael near Beirut.
The telecom data also unveils that al-Hajj made several phone calls
with PFLP-GC militant Bater Rateb al-Nemr, who goes by the nom de guerre of Abou Nemr.
Another PFLP-GC militant had also contacted al-Hajj from a Syrian number during the kidnapping process.
Rifi concludes that Abu Rateb was coordinating between al-Hajj and the owner of the Syrian number until he delivered them to a PFLP-GC fighter on the Lebanese-Syrian border.
The report was published after Rifi told the parliamentary human rights committee last week that the ISF had "dangerous information" linking the Syrian embassy to the disappearance of Syrian opposition member Shebli al-Aisamy in Aley in May.
But Syrian Ambassador Ali Abdul Karim Ali denied any involvement and challenged Rifi to provide evidence.
Although the ISF chief wrote a detailed report on the kidnapping of the Jassem brothers, he stressed that despite the similarity of the two cases, the investigation into al-Aisamy’s abduction was not over yet.
Rifi has also separated the two kidnappings from the investigation into the case of Joseph Sader, an official at Middle East Airline's IT department, who was seized in Feb. 2009 near Rafik Hariri international airport by unidentified assailants.
The release of the investigation report is a blow to the military judiciary and the interior ministry, which according to An Nahar, haven’t taken any action to resolve the issue and unveil the fate of the abductees almost eight months after Rifi referred the information to them.
The newspaper also said that a disciplinary action was taken against Hajj for a 30-day period after he claimed during the questioning that he was in the area of Baabda in a mission linked to the Syrian ambassador when the kidnapping took place.
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