"..The United Nations special tribunal investigating the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri has reached surprising new conclusions -- and it is keeping them secret. According to information obtained by SPIEGEL, investigators now believe Hezbollah was behind the Hariri murder..."
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"b" at MoonOfAlabama had this interesting take on the 'manigences':
I personally know a bit or two about the Spiegel publications interior workings and the above leaked Hariri story is quite curious:
Spiegel is the biggest German news-magazine and the Hariri/Hezbollah story is part of next weeks print edition that will not be available for sale until Monday. The German Spiegel website carries some of the Spiegel print stories but only after the print edition published them. It mostly creates its own content. The English part of the Spiegel website carries translated stories from the German website and very few pieces from the print edition. Those usually with a few days timelag.
This is the very first time I see a story from the German print edition pre-published on the (money losing) English Spiegel site while it is not even available on the (profitable) German Spiegel website.
Someone really felt a huge urge to get the Hariri/Hezbollah story out in English very, very fast and pulled some serious string at the Spiegel chief-editor level to get that done. This might well be the same person(s) that leaked the story.
One of the two Spiegel editors-in chief is Mathias Müller von Blumencron. He was Spiegel's Washington and New York correspondent from 1996 to 2000 and still has excellent connections there. After 2000 he edited the Spiegel website, turned it to the right and introduced the English part. Since 2008 he is one of the two editors-in-chief of the whole Spiegel publishing group.
Thanks to Mathias, the Spiegel English website has an exchange agreement with the New York Times website. Expect a 'reprint' of the Hariri story there soon.
Now - who gave Mathias that call?
7 comments:
Oh, God, Fares Khachan has found another corrupt german journalist.
Follath is also a notorious zionist.
But the funny part that you should have highlighted is the motive :
"Hariri's growing popularity could have been a thorn in the side of Lebanese Shiite leader Nasrallah. In 2005, the billionaire began to outstrip the revolutionary leader in terms of popularity
A bit background on Spiegel at my site.
I am quite sure "the call" came from the U.S.
Israeli moles are falling fast. Quick deflate the enthusiasm of the anti-Israeli camp . quick.
Israeli moles are falling faster than anything.
quick deflate the anti-israeli camp's crescendo. quick.
A comment at Spiegel said that the Kuwaiti newspaper Al Siyasa also carried the story (i.e. got the same leaks).
I can't read it. But googling Al Siyasa I ran into a Lebanese blogpost from February 2005 on a report Al Siyasa ran claiming Syrian generals behind the Hariri killing.
Could someone reading Arabic look into the new Al Siyasa and point out that their new revelation contradicts their old one?
Erich Follath was already Der Spiegel's reporter at large for all things Middle Eastern when I was barely out of elementary school, i.e. in the late 70s... so we're talking deeply embedded here...
this story in der Spiegel is supposed to let the syrians off the hook.
in beirut it is not working with us. don't get me wrong, we hate the earth on which hizballah walks on but we know that it is not they who killed rafik hariri.
if this is an american manipulation to let the syrians walk free then we can say that we were not wrong about the obama adminstration, even if we don't say it out loud.
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