Karam confessed that Aoun knew about his spying, report

MTV quoted a Free Patriotic Movement source as saying that the reason behind MP Michel Aoun’s campaign against the police Intelligence Bureau and Attorney General Said Mirza is a confession made by FPM official, retired Col. Fayez Karam, before Investigating Judge Riad Abu Ghaida, in which he confirmed Aoun’s knowledge of his spying activity for Israel since 2006 at least.

“Karam confessed that he had visited Aoun’s resident in Rabiyeh during the July war, telling him: General, you know about my relation with an officer in Israel’s intelligence services, who nowadays became a diplomat in London, so what do you say if I suggest to him that you become the mediator between them (Israel) and Hezbollah in order to end the war and then you’d play the heroic role before everybody?” the source added.

Aoun allegedly asked Karam to forget about the issue and drop the idea.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, added that Karam’s lawyer had warned Aoun that such a confession represented a proof about his prior knowledge of Karam’s collaboration with the Israelis.

“Aoun decided to face this worrying fact through waging a fierce campaign against the Intelligence Bureau and the Judiciary and pushing Hezbollah to join the campaign, the thing he managed to attain through (former General Security chief Maj. Gen.) Jamil Sayyed, whether Hezbollah knew it or not,” the source added.

On September 5 Aoun attacked the government and the president in a televised speech and called for resignations of several ministers.

Aoun also said that the Internal Security Forces (ISF) Information Branch is an “illegitimate branch “, “kidnaps people for months,” and “spreads rumors about people.”

“Who is this branch responsible to?… Is Interior Minister [Ziad Baroud] asleep?” he asked.

His attacks were assumed to be in reference to the branch’s August 5 arrest of Karam on charges of spying for Israel

Karam who was  a senior FPM official at the time he was arrested , was charged with espionage and providing the Jewish state with information on Hezbollah, Aoun’s closest ally.

Karam and Aoun went into exile in France following Aoun’s defeat by the Syrian army in 1990 and both returned to Lebanon in May 2005 , 11 days following the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon.