-Caveat Lector-
Friday, January 25, 2002 Shvat 12, 5762 Israel Time: 04:20 (GMT+2)
Lebanon accuses Israel of Hobeika hit; Israel rejects charge `with disgust'
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=121568contrassI
D=2subContrassID=1sbSubContrassID=0listSrc=Y
By Daniel Sobelman
Two unidentified men helping Bader al-Reef, Hobeika's mother, as she
arrives at the scene of the car bomb that killed her son yesterday in
Beirut.
(Photo: AP)
Israel yesterday rejected with disgust Lebanese and other Arab
accusations that it was behind the assassination of Elie Hobeika, the
infamous Christian Maronite Phalangist officer who sent troops into
Beirut's Sabra and Chatila refugee camps in 1982 where they massacred some
800 Palestinians.
Hobeika was killed yesterday by a boobytrapped car parked next to his that
was detonated by remote control. The explosion instantly killed the
one-time Israel ally and his three bodyguards, and wounded six other
residents in the east Beirut neighborhood where Hobeika lived. He had been
on his way to go skin diving and the blast ignited four oxygen tanks in
Hobeika's car, intensifying the blast, which damaged buildings in the area.
A leaflet issued in the name of an anti-Syrian Lebanese group claimed
responsibility for the death, saying Hobeika betrayed his country and was
a Syrian agent. The claim, made in a statement in Arabic by a group
calling itself the Lebanese For a Free and Independent Lebanon, was faxed
to Reuters in Cyprus. It was not immediately possible to verify the claim
and there were no statements issued by known anti-Syrian Lebanese groups.
Lebanese government officials immediately blamed Israel for the blast.
Since last year, when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has been facing a law
suit in Belgium, where massacre survivors want Sharon tried for war crimes,
Hobeika has been saying he wants to testify for the prosecution. As
recently as this week, he told Belgian lawmakers visiting Lebanon that he
has revelations that would clear his name and tell a very different
story than the Kahan commission. The Kahan commission was an Israeli
judicial commission inquiry that ruled Sharon, as defense minister and
architect of Israel's invasion of Lebanon and Beirut, had indirect
responsibility for the massacres.
Lebanese President Emil Lahoud, in a statement issued by his office, said
Lebanon will not be influenced by such crimes, and he indirectly accused
Israel by saying that Hobeika was assassinated by those who did not want
him to testify in Belgium.
But David Kimche, who as a top Mossad officer assigned by then-Mossad chief
Yitzhak Hofi to develop ties with the Phalange, including Hobeika, told
Israel TV interviewers that if Hobeika had taken the stand in Belgium,
Israel would have been able to reveal much about him that would not have
been in Hobeika's interests.
Other Lebanese officials, including Minister for Refugee Affairs Marwan
Hamada, blamed Israel because initial assessments are that Israel is not
interested in evidence against it in the historic trial of Ariel Sharon,
the past and present criminal.
Foreign Ministry Deputy Director General Gideon Meir rejected outright the
accusations that Israel was involved. Israel was not involved in this and
we reject with disgust the attempts to blame us, said the ministry
statement. Sharon, when asked about possible Israeli involvement yesterday,
said the question did not deserve a response, while Defense Minister
Benjamin Ben-Eliezer had to be reminded who Hobeika was.
Not that it was easy to forget him. He had been a close ally of Israel in
the 1970s and early 1980s, until the Lebanese invasion turned sour, and
soon after a 1985 amnesty for Lebanese involved in the civil war, he won an
appointment as a minister in the new government and turned into a Syrian
ally.
For many Palestinians, Hobeika's murder yesterday was cause for
celebration, as he is remembered as one of the most anti-Palestinian
extremists in the Maronite Christian community. In refugee camps south of
Beirut there were reports of celebrations in the streets when news of the
assassination became known.
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