Monday, May 25, 2009

Der Spiegel Tries Again


"Hezbollah Did It!"

By FRANKLIN LAMB
CounterPunch

Beirut

"The headline was dramatic. The strongly pro-Israel German weekly Der Spiegel offered bold “new information” it claimed came from secret sources and documents, stemming “inside investigative sources who wefromre working on the Rafic Hariri assassination.....Publication date? October 24, 2005, nearly four years ago. Yes, that particular Spiegel excloo came back in 2005. Syria was accused in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Hariri.....

Fast forward to the tense run-up right now, bore the June elections. This weekend, a new exclusive, secret, investigative report showing the real, real assassins was published by the same weekly, Der Spiegel. Same author. Same editor. New target.

This time Der Spiegel’s Erich Follath claims that the international committee investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister martyr Rafik Hariri has reached “surprising new secret conclusions”, this time pointing to Hezbollah.......

In many respects the 2009 Der Spiegel article is similar to the 2005 piece.....

Ricocheting around Lebanon’s capitol and on the Internet are comments questioning the timing of the Spiegel report as aimed to cause maximum damage to the Hezbollah-led opposition. Who was the supposed source of the ‘leaks’ and why now.....

So far none of Lebanon’s political parties is taking Der Spiegel’s story as credible.....

Hezbollah Media Relations Office issued a statement on Sunday in which it dismissed allegations published by Der Spiegel and broadcast by Al-Arabiyya Channel saying that it is nothing less than “police fabrications”. The statement said, “It’s not the first time that a magazine or newspaper aimed at publishing such fabrications and previously Kuwaiti paper Al-Siyasa has repeatedly published such reports along with other dailies.” The statement continued “It is nothing more than police fabrications cooked in the same black room that has been keen on fabricating such stories for over four years regarding the Syrians and the four Lebanese officers and others.” The statement added that “publishing this report by Der Spiegel and promoting for it by Al-Arabiyya is suspicious in its timing and its political and psychological exploitation especially for two reasons: First it is a pure fabrication aimed at influencing the election campaign in Lebanon on one side, and to deflect attention from the news about the dismantling of spy networks working for Israel on other…. The report comes just two weeks ahead of a June 7 parliamentary election in Lebanon.”......."

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