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.
Beyond the Arabic language, the saga is hardly known outside a narrow circle of academic specialists. There is no book in English – or in any other major European language for that matter – that attempts to give a concise, clear and authoritative survey of the controversy. There are chapters on certain aspects of the subject, on individual participants or on specific issues, but there is no one volume that provides a unified treatment of the saga with a view to helping the general intelligent English reader as well as the student to form a clear picture of causes and consequences. Even in the most direct studies on modern Lebanon, the Sa’adeh saga is treated by scholars mostly at a quite general level.
The existing secondary literature is even less helpful. In contrast to the rich literature on the general phenomenon of Lebanese political crashes, there are relatively few comprehensive historical studies of the Khoury era. It was not until recently that the drought was broken with the publication of Eyal Zisser’s major study Lebanon: The Challenge of Independence.10 Zisser explains the dearth of literature on the “independence era” (ahd al-istiqlal) as follows:
The voluminous struggle over the valid interpretation of Lebanese history failed to elicit much interest in the events of 1943–52. Researchers inclining to a deterministic view thought of that decade as marginal and as devoid of influence on what was in any case destined to follow. For them, an understanding of Lebanon had to be anchored in an analysis of the emergence of Greater Lebanon, of the National Pact, of the 1958 crisis and, most of all, of the civil war. But their counterparts, too, did not find much to attract them to this particular period, at least not beyond the initial struggle for independence and the formulation of the National Pact. Most scholarly histories of either school therefore devote no more than a few lines to the entire decade.11
Zisser’s book has a chapter on the Sa’adeh saga but it doesn’t go far enough. Other attempts are no better.12 Most are ill-informed, full of factual errors, narrow in scope, bizarre in their organization and emphasis, and generally lacking in enthusiasm. Some can be followed only by Lebanese specialists, while others are far too general and brief to satisfy the needs of the reader who wishes to acquire an adequate knowledge of the subject.
The task here is to portray and explain the puzzling complexity of a political trial that went very wrong. Critical to this task is an understanding of the confusing and muddy borderland where politics, criminality, and law often overlap. However, the reader must be alerted as to what this volume is and is not. It is a multidisciplinary exploration of the historical and theoretical underpinnings of a political saga involving variables in politics and law and societal responses to it. It is not a comprehensive historical work or a legal treatise; although some events and law matters are examined in depth, most are referred to, if at all, at a quite general level. Generally, this volume is less a history of a trial than it is a dramatic representation of a tragic episode.
Structurally, Outright Assassination falls into three general sections. The first section is an exploration of Sa’adeh’s political discourse and attitude towards the power structure in Lebanon. It covers his turbulent relationship with the Lebanese State from its origin in 1936 to the period immediately preceding the trial. It would be futile to attempt to explain the controversy without a lucid understanding of Lebanese state politics and Sa’adeh’s reaction to it. The controversy was ideological as much as it was political, and not a straight-forward treason case as it has often been made out to be.
The second section is an attempt to unravel without interruption the last threads of the plot against Sa’adeh’s life. It is a step by step reconstruction of the trial and execution, with its slow and measured procedure, based largely on press reports, published testimonies, and personal recollections of those who lived in that period. In the absence of court records, it is very difficult to confirm the accuracy of the information, but there does seem to be strong consistency between the various accounts. From this re-enactment, the discussion proceeds to an analytical review of the trial process under national and international law.
The third section provides a round-up of the myriad reactions generated by the case both inside and outside Lebanon. The intention here is not to record every detail of the Sa’adeh affair, but to touch instead on the salient aspects, and thus both pave the way for further studies on these topics and to provide a backdrop for those generally in need of dependable information. After that is an enumeration of the various assumptions and theories that have developed about the case in an effort to determine to what extent they differ from one another and why these differences occur. Generally, we will be concerned with developing an inventory of how far these theories have brought us to an understanding of the saga. The section will conclude with a survey of the fallouts from the saga and its repercussions on the main parties.
The present book originated in the need to discover answers. This attempt is made in the full knowledge that, for the foreseeable future, it will not be possible to explain the “why”, “who” and “when” of the Sa’adeh saga more accurately until the secret archives of the Lebanese security services and military court, where Sa’adeh was tried and executed, are opened for public scrutiny. Until then we have to rest content with the available information.
1 It is claimed that Husni az-Zaim watched proceedings from behind the door but refused to make an appearance. Another claim is that Sa’adeh threw back at him the pistol that Zaim had earlier presented as a token of friendship. Neither claim can be confirmed. See Adib Kaddoura, Haqa’iq wa Mawaqif (Facts and Stances). Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1989.
2 An-Nahar, Beirut, 9 June, 1949. See also Nada Raad, “Tueini talks about his turbulent relationship with SSNP: death of party founder Saade seen as turning point.” Beirut: Daily Star, Saturday, 22 May, 2004.
3 Ibid.
4 Fikr. Beirut, No. 73, 1 July, 2000: 76.
5 For an introduction on this relationship see Adel Beshara, Lebanon, The Politics of Frustration: The Failed Coup of 1961 (History and Society in the Islamic World). London and New York: Routledge and Curzon, 2005.
6 On Sa’adeh’s life and thought see Adel Beshara, Syrian Nationalism: An Inquiry into the Political Thought of Antun Sa’adeh. Beirut: Bissan Publications, 1995; Antun Sa’adeh: The Man, His Thought. London: Ithaca Press, 2007.
7 Ron Christenson, Political Trials: Gordian Knots in the Law. 2nd ed. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Press, 1999.
8 Otto Kirchheimer, Political Justice. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1961.
9 Antoine Butrus, Qissat muhakamat Antun Sa’adeh was i’idamehe (An Account of Antun Sa’adeh’s Trial and Execution). Beirut: Chemaly & Chemaly, 2002.
10 Eyal Zisser, Lebanon: The Challenge of Independence. London: I. B. Tauris, 2000: 176–192.
11 Ibid., xi.
12 See the chapter on Lebanon in George M. Haddad, Revolution and Military Rule in the Middle East. 3 Vols. New York: Robert Speller and Sons, Publishers, 1971; Chapter eight in Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria: A Study of Post-War Diplomacy 1945–1958. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965.