مخبر: الحزب ما معو خبر بالموضوع؟

سماحة: عدة إيماءات نفي قاطعة

Translation:

Informer: Does the party knows?

Samaha: Several denying gestures.

While reading the leaked interrogation transcripts published by Al-Joumhouria (See here, here, here, here and here), these sentences caught my attention. Of course, the whole plot is worth talking about, but I’m going to focus on these two phrases.

What Is the “Party”?

There are two possible “parties”: The Baath and Hezbollah.

I’ll go back to meeting one:

سماحة: أنا طالع وبرجع وبتبلش

مخبر: بدنا نتفق هون إنت قلتلي ممكن يتأمن بضاعة محليا نشالله يكون

سماحة: بيقولو للحزب بيحطن بالمطرح الفلاني وخلص منشيلن، ما بيعرفو لا مين ولا وين ولا بيعرفو شي. الجو هون كيف؟

Translation:

Samaha: I’m leaving (to Syria?) then coming back and you’ll start.

Informer: We have to agree here, we can get some local stuff.

Samaha: They tell the Party to put them in that place they put in it and we pick them up. They don’t know who, where, why or anything. What’s up here?

From meeting one, you get to know that the “party” related is in Syria because Samaha tells him how the delivery system works (using the “party”) while the informer tells him he can get some things locally. The party isn’t “local” (or exclusively local). Plus the party  “don’t know who, why and when”, but still follow the orders of one of the four persons aware. And according to the ISF transcripts, they are “The President” (Assad), “Our friend” (Maj. Gen. Ali Mamlouk), Samaha, and the informer. Probably the party in question is the Baath, because if the Hezbollah was involved in the delivery, at least one of its officials would be involved to give the orders, unless Hezbollah’s people follow orders directly from the Syrian officials, in our case Mamlouk, which is very unlikely. Hence in the third meeting, the “party” is highly expected to be another “party”,  Hezbollah, as they’re not related to the plot according to Samaha. If they were related, they would’ve made the delivery in the first place.

The Mastermind? In the few weeks and months that will follow, here’s what’s probably going to be taken from the Samaha case, and used by M14,  the core of the conspiracy: If Assad is capable of killing a Sunni MP of Akkar, If he is capable of killing the Mufti of the North, if he is willing to fuel a civil strife, then he is capable of killing Rafic Hariri.

The Acquittal Of Hezbollah? But the importance of the Samaha Case doesn’t lie in these facts. If Assad can do all of this without telling Hezbollah, and without using Hezbollah, only means that if he did kill Hariri, he wouldn’t have used Hezbollah, just like now. One day before the arrest of Samaha, the fingers were pointing to Hezbollah and his four members. Now they are pointing back to Assad. Notice how Hezbollah started by defending Samaha, but soon kept his silence, that reminds me of Hamas’ one on the Syrian Revolution. Maybe because Hezbollah noticed that they could actually benefit from the whole issue.

How did the meetings start? There are two versions: The Samaha one suggests that the informer came offering him the deal while the informer’s one says that Samaha was the first to call. If the Samaha’s version is right, then someone tried to set the Syrian regime up, and succeeded. Who did that? M14? Hezbollah (the player that is getting the important benefits)? The informer independently?

We’ll probably never know.