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  Outright Assassination

  The Trial and Execution of Antun Sa’adeh, 1949

  Adel Beshara

  Outright Assassination

  The Trial and Execution of Antun Sa'adeh, 1949

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  Ithaca Press

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  Reading, RG1 4QS, UK

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  Copyright @ Adel Beshara, 2010, 2012

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  First Paperback Edition

  ISBN: 9780863725333

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  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Typeset by Samantha Barden

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  Cover photo reproduced courtesy of Badr el-Hage

  Printed and bound in Lebanon by International Press: [email protected]

  Dedicated to the cause of truth and justice

  PREFACE

  This study is a history of the trial and execution of Antun Sa’adeh (1949), the shortest, most secret, and most obscure “event” to take place in independent Lebanon. Its dramatic and political significance stems not only from the acceleration of its procedure, during which the greatest moral and legal values were crushed and violated, but also from its lingering effects on Lebanese politics. Yet if the Sa’adeh event was typical among similar events in history, in two other important respects it was quite unusual. First, unlike all previous and subsequent trials in Lebanon, and indeed the Arab World, the Sa’adeh trial defied human logic and the legal norms that govern proceedings under similar circumstances. Second, although the Sa’adeh trial was a political trial in every sense of the word, widely regarded as a pre-orchestrated political exercise, the Lebanese government refused to treat it as a political event. It decided to schedule a courtroom drama, with at least the embroidery of legality, under the criminal law in order to facilitate the use of the death penalty. This book is thus an examination of how the Lebanese State tried to grapple with a political case by means of ordinary criminal law. How did this effort work in detail? What were its strengths and weaknesses, its limits and boundaries? What were the legal and political ramifications of using the law for political purposes?

  This book chooses to address these questions by means of a detailed history of the saga. The mechanism of the case, the stage machinery of its enactment, the parts played by those who serviced that machinery, and the politics that triggered it are carefully reconsidered and examined. In the process, the study will raise a number of fundamental issues relating to the nature of the trial, discuss whether it was a political trial or not, and determine why it was steamrolled with unprecedented speed. A secondary emphasis of this book is to stimulate issues worthy of additional investigation beyond the confines of present official and non-official accounts in the literature.

  As for the book’s structure, it falls roughly into three main sections. In the first section some background to the saga is given with the main focus being on Sa’adeh’s political views, struggles, and conflict with the central authorities. The second section is concerned with the most “private” aspect, the actual Sa’adeh Affair – trial, execution, and procedures – with special emphasis on the political and legal particulars of the case from the perspective of both domestic and international law. The final section deals with the post-execution stage. It presents a critical and historical analysis of the reaction to, and consequences of; the execution, and an outline of the various scenarios that have surfaced to explain why it happened and who may have been involved and their motivations. Although some of these topics have been dealt with before, a comprehensive analytical approach has rarely been attempted.

  The main sources are records from various domestic and overseas archives, the Lebanese press and periodicals at the time, past and present studies, and the personal accounts and memoirs that have come out in large numbers in the last two decades or so. Notwithstanding their apologetic nature, these memoirs provide valuable insight into Lebanon’s politics and constitute perhaps the liveliest and the most interesting portion of the literature on the Sa’adeh affair.

  As with every study there were restrictions. We have no transcripts, no court records. We do not hear the prosecution or the defendant. We know the story only as told later by individuals who were around at the time. The trial transcripts disappeared after the trial in 1949 and have never been found. The author attempted to retrieve them in person from the archives of the Military Court in Beirut, but to no avail: they smoldered during the 1982 Israeli invasion, so said the officer-in-charge. To our knowledge, some fragments of the transcripts were published in The Case of the National Party, a manuscript put out by the Lebanese government at the end of 1949, but they are extremely inadequate. The manuscript as a whole conveys the proceedings in a highly condensed and one-sided form. It is an utterly indigestible book.

  I am well aware of the great disadvantage caused by my inability to consult the trial transcripts and other source-material directly on the case. I tried my best to minimize the damage by drawing heavily upon memoirs of Lebanese statesmen and the press. I hope that one day this discrepancy will be made good. Until then my conclusions cannot be regarded as final even by myself.

  No book is written in a vacuum. I would especially like to thank Dennis Walker and Jabr Abdul-Fattah (Bahrain) for their help in translation, Richard Pennell (Melbourne), John Daye, Riad Khneisser, and Amal Kayyas (Beirut), Badr el-Hage (London), and Michel Hayek (NDU) whose comments and guidance have been invaluable. I also owe a great debt to numerous colleagues and friends in Melbourne and in Lebanon who read parts of the manuscript and gave me the benefit of their experience and insight. Needless to say, the views expressed in this book and any faults or shortcomings are solely my responsibility.

  Numerous libraries have assisted, more or less knowingly, in providing me with resources. The work of research would be vastly longer and more trying if it was not for the patience and kindness of librarians. My thanks go to staff at the following libraries: Jafet Library at AUB, the Notre Dame University Louaize Library, and Baillieu Library at Melbourne University.

  INTRODUCTION

  At ten precisely on the night of 6 July, 1949, Antun Sa’adeh walked into the Presidential Palace in Damascus for a pre-scheduled meeting with Husni al-Zaim. He was alone – no personal bodyguards, no aides, only the Syrian Chief of General Security, Ibrahim al-Husseini, with him. No sooner had Sa’adeh entered the main foyer than twelve armed guards quickly formed a half-circle around him to block his view of the outside world. No one uttered a word. There was no need. The message was loud and clear and the first to understand it was Sa’adeh. “I get it”, he uttered, with a gentle smile on his face. The scene could easily have been mistaken for a Hollywood production if the characters hadn’t been speaking in Arabic. Mission accomplished, al-Husseini calmly departed and Premier al-Barazzi walked in from another door at the other end of the foyer. Without any formalities al-Barazzi called out to Sa’adeh, “You have a score to settle with Lebanon. Go take care of it.”1 With those words Al-Barazzi inadvertently provided the setting for the most sensational legal case of post-WWII Lebanon: the case of Antun Sa’adeh.

  As in all good dramas,
the Sa’adeh case abounded with ironies. It was short, swift, and very secretive, the entire procedure lasting only thirty-six hours. It was over before it even started. Just about everything about the case was pre-orchestrated – the charges, the evidence, the tribunal, the sentence, the punishment. As it proceeded to its conclusion, other unusual features about the case hid behind a façade of mythical and legal rituals. These were carefully concealed through various instruments so that no detailed reports of the proceedings would reach the public. No one was to learn about the defiant posture of the defendant or about the charges against the regime. It was simply a trial where the government was reluctant to focus on the question of rightness, only the legal issue surrounding the broken law.

  The best that can be said of the trial is that it was a typical drumhead court-martial. Every step in the proceedings was improvised: the judges were either incompetent or non-neutral, the prosecutor was also a judge, the evidence was pre-fabricated, and the accused was presumed guilty from the outset. The outcome of a drumhead court-martial is usually execution by firing squad, and that unerringly was the outcome for Sa’adeh. Yet even the execution process was an administrative nightmare. The state sought to make an example of Sa’adeh as a warning to like-minded individuals that a similar fate could overtake them, but it went about it in the most objectionable way. As it did in his trial, it broke every law in the book to have him executed before daylight.

  For this reason, the Sa’adeh case has been given several pointed descriptions: a parody of justice, an accelerating tragedy, a pitiful comedy, a shameful blot. Ghassan Tueini, the editor-in-charge of the popular Lebanese daily an-Nahar, called it “murder.”2 With equal profundity and depth, Tueini went on to say:

  The authorities have succeeded in arresting Sa’adah, giving him a speedy trial, sentencing him, and executing him, in such a speed which left most people dumbfounded and bewildered. It was difficult to comprehend the reasons for this most unusual and un-called for action, especially that the rebellion was successfully and swiftly suppressed. Even Sa’adeh’s arch-enemies were at a loss of words to justify the Government’s action. Those same enemies are now saying, “What a great tragedy”. Although the Government wanted to get rid of the man as speedily as possible, fearing he would bring terror to Lebanon, yet, by its rash action it has created a great giant, stronger than Sa’adeh ever was, and has made of him a martyr, not only to his followers but to those who never wished him better than death.3

  None, however, could match the description of Edmond Rizk, former Lebanese Minister of Justice. He called it “outright assassination” (“Un assassinat pur et simple”).4

  The present study is a critical and historical analysis of the Sa’adeh saga, the most dramatic and politically resonant trial of post-independence Lebanon. It is a detailed account of the events leading to it, its salient issues, its history and outcome, and its repercussions. As it progresses, the study will tackle a number of substantive issues relating to the motives and deeds of the main participants: What were the domestic backgrounds of the saga? What was the role of regional powerbrokers such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia? To what extent did international politics influence the trial? What role did Premier Riad Solh play and did he act alone? Why was the trial held on camera and not as a public show trial? Wherein lay the similarities and the differences with other political trials and where do they interconnect? How was the accused treated and how was the scenario drawn up? How was the outcome received and why did its repercussions become uncontainable? Was it a political affair? It is the purpose of this book to answer these and similar questions, insofar as the facts permit an answer.

  Although some of these topics have been dealt with before, a comprehensive analytical approach has rarely been attempted. Current scholarships, including those directly on the Khoury era (1943–1952), at best provide a cursory treatment of the saga as part of a general history rather than the thorough analysis it deserves. This approach allows more focus and the inclusion of specific details, but it loses sight of the larger arena in which it happened and ignores the process by which politics overlap, compete and clash, drown or reinforce each other in legal controversies. Indeed, it is exactly in this dialectical process that the Sa’adeh saga should be examined and can best be understood. Moreover, most analyses rely on crude stereotypes within a chronological approach. To gain a fuller understanding of the saga, however, it is important to examine simultaneously other variables such as regime and individual participant behavior – their minds, motives, morality, deeds, and standing under international and domestic law. A multidisciplinary approach is necessary because legal-political controversies occupy an intermediate position between the spheres of politics, religion, culture and psychology, and understanding the part is impossible before one understands the whole.

  If, however, it is necessary to recognize the variability of Sa’adeh’s trial across time, as well as to situate the saga in its proper political and legal context, then such detailed individual histories are urgently needed. These works, when taken together, enable us to begin to piece together the political background to the saga and its significance for postwar Lebanese history. What remains necessary above all, however, is to begin to embed these insights into a more comprehensive understanding of the nature of Lebanese law and political system, and of the Lebanese Republic in the 1940s. To understand the Sa’adeh saga properly, one must also understand the tumultuous relationship between Sa’adeh and the Lebanese state more generally.5

  As one of the most tragic incidents of the period, the Sa’adeh trial and execution enlivens histories of the early independence era, but does it merit serious historical investigation in it own right? We have answered “yes.” First, an examination of the saga provides many opportunities to cast light on an obscure and neglected period, to date mostly unexplored, of modern Lebanon. It helps to widen the framework in which the Khoury regime should be considered and to evaluate its significance in several intersecting contexts. There is much to learn from the saga about the Lebanese political system, its workings, and its performance under conditions of strain. Moreover, by reconstructing the saga along with the events leading up to it we can instinctively gain a number of insights into the character of Antun Sa’adeh, a person who achieved a great reputation through his writings and revolutionary activities,6 and into the much-misunderstood politics of the Syrian Social National Party and other active participants.

  Second, as an historical event, the Sa’adeh saga has much to offer those who keenly follow and study political trials. Inquisitors will find themselves in the presence of a case that had all the trappings of a political trial, whose course was dictated by definite political aims, and whose conduct was thoroughly political yet calculatingly staged under a non-political law. Thus, the jurisprudence of the case is useful both for legal and political inquiry, particularly regarding the intractable question of why governments react differently to similar circumstances or would attempt to avoid a political trial if they think that the exercise is too cumbersome. The Sa’adeh saga is also useful for testing several hypotheses about political justice: Is there such a thing as a political trial? What are its main attributes? What is a political crime? Is a political trial better perceived as politics or as law? What is the difference between what is properly politics and what is properly law? What should a court do when confronted with a case that questions the legitimacy of law itself? Is law legitimate only when might does not make right? Is power its own authority in politics? Is a political trial a disease of both politics and law, or can a political trial affirm the rule of law? Can a political trial make a positive contribution to a democratic society?7 As a case study in political justice, the Sa’adeh saga is especially pertinent to Otto Kirchheimer’s theory of how governments use the law for political purposes.8

  Third, as a subject for appraisal, the Sa’adeh saga is protean. A lawyer will view the trial as the focus of many novel and difficult legal questions, both substantive and
procedural; the political scientist will perhaps see it as a fascinating study of a constitutional democracy in reversal; the historian will find chief value in the wealth of information – both official and personal – which the trial brought to light, and in the recollections and commentaries of the participants and politicians and officials and other leading figures in the era of the Khoury regime. All scholars and professional men will find much of interest and value in the politics preceding and following the saga.

  The importance of the Sa’adeh saga was immediately recognized by contemporaries. In addition to the massive press coverage that appeared shortly after its conclusion, there has been over the years an outpouring of books and monographs about the event. However, it has been mostly in Arabic and often either rather cursory or polemical. The one exception in this regard is Antoine Butrus’ celebrated book Qissat muhakamat Antun Sa’adeh was i’idamehe (An Account of Antun Sa’adeh’s Trial and Execution).9 Yet, despite the admirable thoroughness of the book, a great deal of work remains to be done. Butrus’ book is the starting point for all future research in the sense that he made available, for the first time, far more material about Sa’adeh than had previously been known. However, a reader of his book may still find it hard, within the welter of factual information, to gain a rounded impression of the saga. All is not lost, however. There is an abundance of information in the Lebanese press and memoirs of the Khoury era. And although press coverage of the saga was often tainted by political prejudice and personal animosity toward Sa’adeh or toward the government, several newspapers were able to provide a fair and generally impartial treatment of events as they happened. The most important was an-Nahar, which kept its wide readership continuously informed and published almost daily disclosures and comments about the controversy. Personal memoirs and reports also contain valuable information and offer the reader various perspectives from participants and independent witnesses. Nonetheless, they should be handled with care as they illuminate only part of the picture and, because of their restricted scope, do so in a necessarily subjective manner.