ABU DHABI // The trial of a Syrian claiming to be a key witness in the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister and facing charges of entering the UAE on a false passport resumed yesterday with the defence asserting that French authorities had given him the document for his protection.
MZS, who claims to be a former Syrian intelligence officer, was arrested in Sharjah on April 19 and has been charged with entering the UAE using a fraudulent Czech passport. Yesterday his lawyers told the Federal Supreme Court that MZS had taken refuge in France and that French intelligence gave him the Czech passport that he used to enter the UAE. The defence also said that UAE authorities had agreed to MZS's entering the country.
After the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al Hariri and the killing of 22 others in a massive car bomb explosion in Beirut on February 14, 2005, MZS fled Syria. When the United Nations Special Tribunal for Lebanon was set up that year to investigate the killing, MZS came forward claiming that Syria was behind the assassination. Prosecutors in Lebanon have charged him in absentia with assassination and in October 2005 issued an international warrant for his arrest.
He was arrested a few days later in a Paris suburb, where he lived with his wife and two children. French authorities questioned him on his testimony to investigators for the UN tribunal. Lebanon asked France to extradite him, but the French government declined, on the grounds that it had no guarantee that he would not be executed if convicted. France released him in 2006, and he continued to live in that country until March 2008.
Both Syria and Lebanon sought his extradition when he was arrested in the UAE in April. The UN tribunal, however, said yesterday that MZS was no longer a credible witness for its investigation. "The [prosecution] has no further interest in [MZS] ... insofar as he offered information to the [prosecution] which has been found to lack credibility," Radhia Achouri, spokeswoman for the prosecutor at the tribunal, said by telephone.
Dr Fahd al Sabhan, the newly appointed lawyer for MZS, told the court yesterday: "The French intelligence gave MZS a Czech passport to protect his identity because he is a wanted man in Syria and in Lebanon." Chief Justice Khalifa al Muhairi asked: "Why would the French intelligence give you a fake Czech passport?" MZS replied: "That wasn't my concern. They just knew that my life was in danger and I needed to be protected."
The French Embassy in Abu Dhabi declined to comment on the case. The Czech Embassy previously told the court that the passport was fraudulent. MZS denied any knowledge of the passport's invalidity. The defence asserted that he and his family came to the UAE with the knowledge and permission of the UAE government. "He entered the country with the permission of the Ministry of Interior, and he was even able to set up a business here, in Ajman," Dr al Sabhan told the court.
The Ministry of Interior would not comment to The National on the case. Judge al Muhairi yesterday adjourned the hearing to await a response from the Ministry of Interior. myoussef@thenational.ae
