Khaddam will stay in exile, according to prosecutor

The prosecution lawyer behind the trial of the former Syrian vice president says he does not expect the exiled official to be arrested by international police.

Hossam Eddine Habash brought the prosecution case against the former Syrian vice president Abdul Halim Khaddam.

DAMASCUS // The prosecution lawyer behind the trial of Abdul Halim Khaddam, the former Syrian vice president, has said he does not expect the exiled official to be arrested by international police. A military court in Damascus sentenced the former Baath party official to life imprisonment and hard labour after finding him guilty on a string of charges, including inciting an attack on Syria and lying to the United Nations.

The Syrian legal authorities are now due to send the verdict papers to Interpol's headquarters in France, where Mr Khaddam has been living since 2005. It will then be up to the international police organisation to decide whether or not take action against the 73-year-old. Interpol were asked to comment on the case but refused to do so. Among the 13 charges, Mr Khaddam was found guilty of conspiring with a foreign country to carry out aggression against Syria by giving an interview to an Israeli journalist. Having contacts with Israelis is punishable by 100 years in jail in Syria, which remains technically at war with the Jewish state.

Hossam Eddine Habash, the Syrian lawyer who brought the prosecution case, said he hoped the one-time vice president would be extradited to Damascus, but conceded there was little chance it would actually happen. "These are criminal charges, not just some political allegation so there is no reason for Interpol not to make an arrest," he said in an interview with The National at his basement office in the Syrian capital. "Realistically though I can't see them doing it because it would be seen as a political act.

"But at least it will put pressure on Khaddam to know that one day he might be in a country where an arrest warrant will be enforced and he will have to face justice." For almost 30 years, Mr Khaddam was a member of the Baath party's regional command, its most powerful grouping, and Syria's leading official in Lebanon. However he fell from favour after Bashar Assad, the president, took power after the death of his father, Hafez, in 2000.

In 2005, Mr Khaddam went to France, ostensibly on a working visit, but never returned. From there he publicly accused Mr Assad of threatening to kill Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, shortly before he was assassinated. Syria's government has denied having any role in the killing, which is being investigated by a UN commission. From his new base in France, Mr Khaddam set up the Syrian National Salvation Front, an opposition coalition that includes the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic organisation banned in Syria. He has since called for the overthrow of the Syrian regime.

Although now a self-styled democrat and opposition leader, Mr Khaddam appears to have little, if any, real support inside Syria. Instead, he is widely regarded as one of the most corrupt figures of the Baath party old-guard and his decision to flee is ascribed to fear that he was about to fall victim to an anti-corruption drive, rather than any real belief in the merits of political reform. After the sentence was passed, Mr Khaddam insisted he was unconcerned. "This verdict does not worry me or affect my determination," he said in a written statement yesterday, insisting that it proved "the isolation of the Syrian regime, which is transforming the country into a huge prison and increasing its repression of the people."

Yet Mr Habash insisted the decision to prosecute the case had nothing to do with the Syrian authorities. "I brought the prosecution privately, I worked alone," he said. "If the government had supported me it wouldn't have taken me two and-a-half years to get this verdict." Mr Habash - a chain-smoking lawyer who spent two years as a political prisoner in Syria - stressed he was independent from the Baath party and had even, at one point, approached the Syrian government for assistance in the trial.

"They didn't want anything to do with it. I think they would have preferred it if the whole thing was just forgotten." There was a deeply personal motivation behind Mr Habash's pursuit of the former Syrian vice president through the courts. "I was arrested in 2004 and I hold Khaddam responsible for that," he said. Charged with "undermining national unity", Mr Habash spent two years in prison before a judge ruled there was no case to answer and freed him.

"Khaddam tried to have me convicted but failed," he explained, flashing a 'V' for victory sign with his fingers. Because Mr Khaddam refused to attend the court sessions, he was tried in absentia without a legal defence team. Mr Habash dismissed claims the trial was therefore unfair. "If he is extradited to Syria a full retrial would be held, and Khaddam would get a defence," he said. Umran Zaubie, another Syrian lawyer and a Baath party member, said he had been surprised at the lack of government interference.

"It's probably because it's a sensitive case. They didn't want to get accused of making it political," he said. The verdict against Mr Khaddam was delivered on Aug 17 but took almost two weeks to come to light, just days before the planned visit to Damascus of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, on Wednesday. Mr Habash said the timing was a coincidence and the result of slow court bureaucracy, not an effort to force the matter on to the agenda at the presidential talks. "This won't be discussed, I'm sure, it's got nothing to do with the visit," he said.

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