BEIRUT, Jan 25-- Former Christian warlord Elie Hobeika taped "evidence" on the Sabra and Shatila massacres during Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon before he was assassinated, a Beirut newspaper reported Friday.
The Daily Star said the evidence allegedly implicated Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who was defence minister at the time of the massacres in the Palestinian refugee camps of Beirut.
"On a pair of occasions ..., including one just two months ago, Hobeika told editors from this newspaper that he has recorded his account of Sabra and Shatila," said the Daily Star. It said Hobeika, a former minister and intelligence chief of the Lebanese Forces militia who was killed in a Beirut car-bomb attack on Thursday, had told the newspaper that he "entrusted copies of the tape to lawyers."
"According to him, he had evidence that would implicate Sharon even more directly than is widely believed," said the English-language daily.
An Israeli commission of inquiry in 1983 found Sharon "indirectly responsible" for the camp massacres in which Christian militiamen slaughtered between 800 and 2,000 Palestinian refugees in September 1982.
It charged that Hobeika ordered the massacres, which took place as the Israeli army held positions near the two camps.
"Hobeika feared being assassinated" because of the trial being filed against Sharon in Belgium by survivors of the massacres, said An-Nahar, another Lebanese daily. "What will become of his secrets?"
It also asked what "revelations" he could have made to a delegation of Belgian senators he met secretly in Beirut earlier this week.
"Assassination of Hobeika, the man who knew too much," headlined L'Orient Le Jour. "He was in the front row of the (Lebanese civil) war and without doubt held many of its secrets, which history will now have more trouble unearthing."
Israel has slammed Lebanese accusations that it had a hand in the assassination of Hobeika. Sharon himself said the "allegations do not even merit a reaction from Israel."
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud implicitly accused Israel of being behind the killing in a bid to prevent Hobeika from testifying against Sharon.
A Belgian court is studying whether it can accept a case brought against the Israeli premier, who resigned from the post of defence minister as a direct result of the massacres.
A Belgian senator, Josy Dubie, said after the killing that Hobeika told him and a colleague Tuesday he had new evidence on the camp massacres and would be prepared to testify in any trial against Sharon.
Copyright ©2002 Agence France Press.
Dr. Laurie King-Irani is North American Coordinator of International Campaign for Justice for the Victims of Sabra & Shatila. For media queries, write to coordinator@indictsharon.net. For website queries, write to webmaster@indictsharon.net.
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