Hezbollah knew about Karam’s spying, report

Hezbollah knew that retired Brigadier General Fayez Karam, a senior Free Patriotic Movement official , was collaborating with Israel from the moment he was arrested last September, an Arab diplomat told Al-Balad newspaper in an interview published on Friday.

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

“Hezbollah did not bring up the issue of Karam publicly because it took into account its alliance with FPM leader MP Michel Aoun,” the diplomat said.

“Hezbollah insists on pursuing the investigations with Karam until the end and wants the latter to be penalized just like the rest of the Israeli collaborators,” the diplomat added.

FPM denies

This comes after MP Ibrahim Kanaan , another senior FPM official told OTV last Sunday that the Karam did not confess to collaborating with Israel.

Kanaan claimed that the arrest was aimed at targeting Aoun.

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.

MTV quoted a Free Patriotic Movement source last September 23 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 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 2006 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 MTV source added.

The source 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.