Surprise, surprise - another Sharon witness goes bang

[Anonymous]

It seems that the three most dangerous professions are policeman, fireman, and being a prosecution witness for the Belgian/Sharon warcrimes trial.
From the American Free Press:

A third witness for the prosecution in the case charging Ariel Sharon, the
current Israeli prime minister, with war crimes was killed in Brazil on March 7.

Michael Nassar, 39, is the third former Lebanese militia fighter to die this year who had command-level knowledge of the 1982 massacre of some 2,500 Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut.

Nassar and his wife, Marie, 31, were shot by masked assailants with silencer- equipped pistols at a gas station in Sao Paolo, Brazil, as they waited to repair a tire, which had been punctured as they drove through a tunnel.

A nephew of the former commander of Israel's proxy army, the South Lebanon Army, Nassar had been an associate of Elie Hobeika, the former Phalangist leader who died in a January car bombing in Beirut. Nassar had made a fortune selling weapons to Croatian forces.

The first former associate of Hobeika to be killed was Jean Ghanem, who drove his car into a tree on New Year's Day. He died after being in a coma for two weeks.

Nassar had called a friend because men in a car were following him. He called again to report that the pursuers seemed to have vanished, when they suddenly reappeared and fired five bullets into Nassar and seven into his wife.

A Belgian court recently postponed its decision over whether to indict Sharon for his role in the massacres until May 15. However, key witnesses for the prosecution are disappearing by the week.

A Lebanese witness said recently that dozens of Palestinians who survived the massacres were executed at a former barracks near Jounieh, north of Beirut, after being held in containers for two weeks.

Israeli troops reportedly handed the Palestinian prisoners over to the Phalangists to be killed. Britain s newspaper, The Independent, according to its correspondent Robert Fisk, knows the location of their mass grave.

http://www.americanfreepress.net/03_17_02/And_Then_There_Were_None/ and_then_ther e_were_none.html

 

[ninja_cat]

It's getting worrying all these people dying - are Israel the only nation in the developed world who still operate a overt and active assasination policy? And why are they allowed to do so? Fair enough operating in their own country - they can claim national security, but in third party countries? Surely this kind of activity should only be happening in movies, not the real world with real people. I know the argument is that these people are presumed guilty of terrorism etc, but that should mean they are brought to court and tried fairly, not shot by a unknown assasin to protect a head of state from being shown to be as bad as his enemy.

I'll stop ranting there.

 

[Anonymous]

The problem with Sharon is that he has so many dubious contacts/bakers, it is not neccesarily Mossad carrying out these attacks, it could be almost anyone.
Ex-KGB mercs, ex-Mossad, even ex-Hamas working for cash.

 

[ninja_cat]

I would put a lot of money on it being Mossad though.

 

[harlequin2005]

Virtually any or all criticism of Israel winds up in the arguement being drowned out in cries of 'Anti-semitism'. However, yes, they do operate an overt assination policy

8-)

 

[Anonymous]

I doubt very much Israel is the only goverment to assasinate in other countries. I think that is fairly standard practice.

 

[Anonymous]

What's the reason they came up with for postponing the court case?

Not that I'm suggesting anything, but quite a few Belgians I know consider that pretty much anything/anyone can be bought in Belgium.

And did anyone catch the news report yesterday where Cheney was holding the Palestinians pretty much sole responsible for the current situation?
He may have been misquoted, but he was insisting on the end of Palestinian violence against Israel, but didn't say anything about the end of Israeli violence on Palestine.
I'm not saying that Palestinians are poor innocent victims either, but a bit of balance in sharing the blame might have been welcome.

 

[ninja_cat]

I think that is fairly standard practice.

Possibly, but not overtly. Possibly the French covertly (remember the rainbow warrior fiasco), but most developed countries in a democracy probably wouldn't want to risk the national fallout should they ever be found out doing so. It certainly wouldn't be as routine as happens in the middle east.

There is an argument that the UK used assasination against the IRA during the troubles but I would presume this to be very select and with strict rules of engagement, after all we are masters of petty beauracracy.

 

[Anonymous]

I doubt very much Israel is the only goverment to assasinate in other countries. I think that is fairly standard practice.

Actually most countries, even the ones with agressive intelligent agencies, shy away from assissination, mainly because it provides justification for attacks against your own heads of state.
A kind of professional courtsey between politicans
The CIA have had an no-assissination policy since the days of Carter, as has MI6. (Saying that, there is an American Congressman who is trying to gather support to overtun the Executive Order forbidding assissinations)
The shoot to kill policy in Northern Ireland is hard to judge, mainly because the Stalker inquiry was fucked over by the Tories, so its hard to estimate how far up the command structure the policy was authorised

 

[Anonymous]

The problem with Sharon is that he has so many dubious contacts/bakers, ...

True, but who are you going to turn to if you need some serious dough.

 

[Anonymous]

d'oh!

 

[ogopogo3]

Wasn't there a case involving the MOSSAD many years back where they went to a foreign country (I'm thinking in Scandinavia), and assassinated a totally innocent man?

Although, they were very effective in hunting down most of the surviving Munich Olympics terrorists.

Was MOSSAD involved on the raid on Entebbe, or was that another agency?