AMMAN, Jordan, Nov. 29 (UPI) -- Arab press roundup for Nov. 29:
Lebanon's anti-Syrian an-Nahar daily Tuesday blasted Syrian intelligence services for the televised testimony of an alleged Syrian witness in the investigation into former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's assassination.
The mass-circulation paper was commenting on Husam Husam, who claimed Monday on state-run Syrian TV and later in a news conference to have been bribed by Hariri's son, Saad Hariri, to give false testimony to international investigators that would implicate the Syrians in the assassination. The daily said the televised testimony was a desperate attempt orchestrated by the Syrian Baath regime, which it said continues to play a negative role in the Middle East.
It criticized the Syrian regime for failing to "understand that everything comes to an end yet refuses to work toward internal reforms and peace with its Arab neighbors first before Israel."
The Lebanese paper asked why Damascus fails to see the "logic of trying to solve a crime and punish those responsible by trying to get out of punishment from the international community on a terrorist crime that was not the first and will not be the last," in reference to Hariri's slaying, who was killed in a massive explosion in Beirut in February. It asked why the regime "lies to its people by portraying the investigation as an American-Zionist scheme against Syria's steadfastness and defiance, while the issue is the probe in a terrorist crime of which the Syrian people know the regime is not innocent."
The commentary said the Arabs, before the West, have become tired of such behavior, adding these actions have completely stripped the Syrian regime of any friends.
"It is a desperate regime that creates desperate witnesses like Husam Husam," the paper said.
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The Lebanese as-Safir daily said Husam's televised account was serious.
The independent daily said the U.N. report on the investigation submitted to the U.N. Security Council relied on two witnesses, one of who turned from a witness to a defendant, and Husam, who claims to have been bribed to give false testimony to investigators.
The man's televised account, it insisted, should "reinstate the truth ... not through silence and ignoring or denying" the witness's claims, but by introducing "clarity, transparency and detailed response to verify or refute every word."
The paper argued knowing the truth on why an accused witness turned into a defense witness was important, adding if this does not happen, "we will really be standing before settling political scores that will do nothing but reflect the political balance of power and pushing it towards more imbalance."
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The United Arab Emirates' al-Khaleej said in its editorial that finding and punishing the perpetrators of Hariri's killing was a duty, as was trying toppled Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
The pro-government daily added it was equally important to bring international justice to Palestine, "where the terrorist Zionists kill, destroy, swallow up more land and desecrate holy shrines." The anti-Israeli paper described Israel as the "biggest example in the world of terrorism in all its forms and of violating international legitimacy and all its resolutions."
The daily added that an effective Arab action was needed to stop this "double standard so that humanity will believe, even for once, that there are those who really care about human rights, justice and equality."
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Qatar's ash-Sharq daily commented on Monday's hearing of Saddam Hussein and his former aides, saying it was a "new act in this play in which the Kurdish Iraqi presiding judge maintained his cool as he has been trained to do so by the Americans so that he is portrayed as a fair judge leading a fair trial."
The pro-government paper said the judge's response to giving the defendants what they asked for came to show a "humanitarian image and give the impression of justice, integrity and transparency."
But this image, it argued, was destroyed when the occupation forces cut off, censored and edited the recorded broadcast of the trial.
"This only means the justice and integrity is absent in this trial," the paper opined. It went on to say a "bombshell" fell in the "Green Zone" outside the courtroom from one of the Iraqi figures "who came on top of the American tanks," or Adnan Pachachi, when he said that "Saddam Hussein is a prisoner-of-war."
Such a statement coming from a former official in post-Saddam Iraq, the paper argued, confirms that Saddam's trial is "null and illegitimate because a war prisoner under international law cannot be tried under occupation."
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The Bahrain Tribune commented in its editorial on a British newspaper report suggesting that Prime Minister Tony Blair persuaded President George Bush against bombing Al Jazeera headquarters in the Qatari capital, Doha, last year.
The English-language daily said Bush's "bizarre bomb threat" based on a transcript of a meeting between the two leaders in Washington brought a stereotypical denial from the White and House and Downing Street. "But still," the pro-government paper said, "what we find astonishing is that both the White House and Downing Street have publicly responded thus -- given the fact that top leaders from both Western nations are so fond of posturing, so often, as being vigorous champions of a free press."
It argued that making matters worse was the fact that British newspapers now faced the risk of being taken to court and prosecuted for leaking a "Top Secret" government memo.
"This is precisely the kind of case where the international fraternity of professional journalists must initiate some concerted action to ensure that powerful political establishments are not able to muzzle the press so easily," the paper stressed. It added the Bush administration and Bush himself "has a lot to answer for on this count. We only hope that the media does not allow the two governments to scuttle a public inquiry - assuming, of course, that there is one."
