Elie Hobeika, militia-leader-turned-politician, claimed Thursday that he had evidence proving he had nothing to do with the massacre of hundreds of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila in 1982, when he was a senior officer of the Lebanese Forces.
Hobeika, who held several portfolios in postwar Cabinets and lost his seat as Baabda MP in last year’s polls, also expressed willingness to appear before a Belgian court currently studying the possibility of charging Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with crimes against humanity for his role in the massacres.
Hobeika, who held a news conference at the Journalists Union Headquarters in Sioufi, would not elaborate on the nature of the documents, but he repeatedly stressed that they would “change the story told by the Kahan Commission.”
In 1983, Israel’s Kahan Commission blamed Hobeika, then a top-ranking Lebanese Forces official, for personally directing the Sabra and Shatila slaughter.
The commission also found then-Defense Minister Sharon “indirectly responsible” for the deaths, and said he had disregarded “the dangerous acts of vengeance and bloodshed” committed by Lebanese Forces militiamen inside the camps.
Nearly two dozen survivors of the killings filed suit in a Belgian court last month, accusing Sharon of crimes against humanity. The suit, spearheaded by prominent Lebanese lawyer Chibli Mallat, was made possible by a 1993 Belgian law which allows the court to try war crimes cases unrelated to Belgium.
Hobeika, who has yet to face any criminal inquiry over his possible role in the killings, said he was looking forward to the trial because it offered him a chance to prove his innocence and that of the “Lebanese party which the Israelis incriminated.”
“I am totally comfortable discussing the Sabra and Shatila issue before the Belgian court,” he said. “Perhaps, I will be given an opportunity, for the first time in 19 years, to expose the truth, defend myself, and present hard-core, irrefutable evidence … that I am innocent.”
But Hobeika denied that he might testify against Sharon in order to cut a deal with those trying to indict the Israeli prime minister: “I don’t need to make any deals,” he said.
He also described Belgium as “a neutral location far from the influence of political pressures,” and said he is speaking because the time is “right” for him to “act after a long period of silence.”
Without specifically naming the Lebanese Forces, Hobeika said he possessed evidence which would exonerate the militia of any involvement. However, he did acknowledge that there was “Lebanese involvement” in the massacres, but dismissed previous claims by reporters that witness accounts had placed him at the scene.
“You know this is not true,” he told a reporter who said there was TV footage of Hobeika in the camps. “I dare anyone to say that I was involved.
“My name appeared in only one place: the Kahan Commission,” he said, adding: “I have two things in my possession: evidence that proves my innocence and information that tells a different story from that told by the Kahan Commission.”
According to the Kahan probe, Hobeika, who was then head of the Lebanese Forces’ intelligence unit, personally led militiamen into the camps. The militia was allowed entry into the camps by Israeli troops who had seized Beirut during their invasion of the country.
The militiamen stormed the camps two days after President-elect Bashir Gemayel, a Phalange Party leader, was assassinated in a bombing initially blamed on Palestinian guerrillas, the LF’s wartime enemies.
Hobeika later switched sides to become a close ally of Syria.
“About 19 years ago, the Sabra and Shatila crime took place,” he said. “At that time, and before any Lebanese or international body could conduct any investigations, I was accused of committing this crime … without being given the chance to defend myself.”
Claiming the Kahan Commission was “biased,” he said people took its findings at face value, and never dug deeper to ask who was really responsible.
“Thus it was as though the perpetrator of the Sabra and Shatila crime was known and there was no need to search for him,” he said.
Hobeika added that he never used his former influence to escape persecution for his alleged role, claiming that his low profile regarding war issues was simply an attempt to put the past behind him “in order to forget the war.”
He also accused his enemies of continually using the massacres against him “for ideological, political, partisan, sectarian and personal reasons. Not once did they back their accusations with evidence except the Kahan Commission.”
Regarding any potential legal defense, Hobeika said such moves are still undecided
“For now, there’s me,” he said, adding that as a lawyer, he could pursue legal action on his own if he was not satisfied with the outcome of the Belgian inquiry.
Moreover, he vowed that once the case was closed, he would “expose all the events of the war in Lebanon.”
He also accused the Arab and foreign media of bias in “revivals” of the war’s events, and said its coverage painted an incomplete picture “by showing only one faction of the Lebanese ­ as if they were solely responsible for the war and its atrocities.”
“Since I am from this accused group,” he said, “I find myself obliged to correct (the picture), so the new generation will not remain a victim of biased media.”