Jamil Al Sayyed is a Lebanese politician, a current Member of the Parliament of Lebanon, and the former head of Lebanon's Sureté Générale or Lebanese General Security Directorate. He was detained for four years, from 2005 to 2009, due to his alleged involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese prime ministerRafik Hariri. He was released on 29 April 2009 due to "inconsistencies in the statements of key witnesses and of a lack of corroborative evidence to support these statements and to the fact that some witnesses had modified their statements and one key witness had expressly retracted his original statement incriminating the persons detained". He was never charged with a crime.
Early life and education
Sayyed was born into a Shia family in the Bekaa village of Al Nabi Ayla, near Ablah, in 1950. He graduated from al Hikmeh school in Beirut.
Career
After graduation from the Lebanese Military Academy in 1971, he was sent to France for a one-year military training course with the French Army. After his return to Lebanon he was assigned for two years as military trainer for cadet officers, then he was sent to the Egyptian Army in Cairo for a military course as antitank missile trainer before serving in the armored corps as commander of Anti-tank Autonomous Unit of the Lebanese Army in Beirut until June 1976. Due to the civil war which started in Lebanon early 1975 and led to the division of the Lebanese Army into religious units, Sayyed refused to join any of them. Later on September 1976 he decided to join the First Brigade in Bekaa, the Bekaa valley which remained the only multi- communitarian unit in the Lebanese army during the civil war under brigadier general Ibrahim Shaheen, who at that time and in coordination with other Christian, Muslim and Druze officers established the Vanguards of the Lebanese Army with the Syrian help against the Arab Lebanese Army formed composed of defected army units and headed by the defected Lt Ahmad Al Khatib who was backed by Palestinian Fatah Organization and its Lebanese allies. In 1978, after the reunification of the Lebanese army, Sayyed was assigned as head of the military intelligence branch of the First Brigade after it was reincorporated into the Lebanese Army and became army intelligence. Next, in 1982, Major Jamil Sayyed was sent for a six months military intelligence course with the US Army in the USA, Arizona. He was back just after the beginning of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982,he was moved from his military intelligence post for few months. After the starting of the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon by mid 1983, Lt Colonel Sayyed was appointed as deputy then chief intelligence officer in the Bekaa Valley Region where he stayed in post until 1991. From 1989 to 1990, within his functions as regional chief intelligence in Bekaa where PM Elias Hrawi was elected as President just after the assassination in Beirut on 22 November 1989 of the newly elected president Rene Moawwad, Sayyed was assigned for the protection of the new president until mid 1990 after he formed the temporary presidential guard unit. In 1991, Sayyed left his post in Bekaa Valley after being appointed as deputy Director of the military intelligence Directorate of the Lebanese Army. Six years later, in 1998, then Lebanese President Emile Lahoud appointed him as the director-general of the interior ministry's general security department. Sayyed was a member of the committee that was founded on 6 December 2000 to receive the Lebanese detainees from Syrian prisons and investigate their files.
Resignation and Political Detention
Sayyed resigned from office on 25 April 2005 as a result of the heavy pressure from the anti-Syria opposition in Lebanon after Rafik Hariri's assassination on 14 February 2005. He was one of seven officials whose resignations had been requested by the Lebanese opposition after the assassination. These demands were initially not taken into consideration by Lebanese regime. Wafiq Jizzini succeeded Sayyed as general security chief on 5 October 2005. A few months after his resignation Sayyed was arrested on August 30, 2005 by Lebanese authorities for his alleged role in the assassination. He stayed four years in prison with no charges or accusation or trial. The United Nations High Commission for Human Rights in Geneva considered in an official report of its Work Team on arbitrary detention dated Nov. 30th, 2007, that his detention is arbitrary and violates articles 9 & 14 of the International Pact for Civil and Political Rights. In the Annual Reports for Human Rights of 2006, 2007 and 2009 of the US Department of State, Sayyed was considered as an Arbitrary detained by the Lebanese Authorities.
Post-release period
After his release unconditionally by the decision of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in April 2009, Sayyed was authorized by the Decision of the same Tribunal on 12 May 2011, to receive from the Tribunal the elements of proof related to the false witnesses who caused his arbitrary detention for 4 years in order to allow him to pursue them legally before national competent justices.
Within the detention period of Gl Jamil El Sayyed, the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights in Geneva considered, in an official report of its Work Team on arbitrary detention dated November 30, 2007, that his detention was arbitrary and violated articles 9 & 14 of the International Pact for Civil and Political Rights. In the Annual Reports of 2006, 2007 and 2009 of the US Department for Human Rights Department, Sayyed was considered as an Arbitrary detained by the Lebanese Authorities.
In May 2018, Jamil Al Sayyed ran for the 2018 Lebanese general election as an independent candidate to represent the constituency of Baalbek -Hermel at the National Assembly. He won his seat as a Member of Parliament with the highest number of preferential votes in Bekaa area and the third highest number of preferential votes across Lebanon.
