Hundreds of Lebanese citizens have been arrested and strangely convicted for spying. The big question today is: Spying on what in Lebanon? What secrets, either technological or military Lebanon have? Lebanon is importing the technology from abroad and no weapons or equipment secrets are available since years to export. Recently, a new type of spying cases has emerged in Lebanon, the pretended cases of telecom spies. This article is revealing the truth behind fabricating a spying case for a telecom employee and the goal behind such exaggerated and falsified accusations; it's the case of Tarek Rabaa.

Hundred of articles have been published on the net regarding a conspiracy to target the so-called Hizbullah by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon by manipulating the Call Data Registry to indict the Resistance in Lebanon in assassinating the ex-prime minister Rafic Hariri. Sharmine Narwani is one of the reporters who has published an article based on a conspiracy theory by using as input a story fabricated by the military intelligence in Lebanon about Telecom spies and she had based her article on an assumption that the telecom sector in Lebanon was infiltrated by the Israelians while ignoring the real political situation and distribution of power in Lebanon. She used the name of telecom engineer Tarek Rabaa who was suspected in 2010 for collaborating with the Mossad. The following article will reveal a shocking truth about the malicious plan to target Tarek Rabaa by the intelligence of the army which is known in Lebanon by its collaboration with the so-called Hizbullah. Once the reader will understand the truth behind indicting Tarek Rabaa he will easily conclude who targeted Rafic al Hariri.

Who is Tarek Rabaa?
Tarek Rabaa, a 41 years old lebanese Telecom engineer was working as head of transmission engineering unit at Alfa (http://www.alfa.com.lb), one of the cellular operator in Lebanon, was purposely accused in 2010 for collaborating with the Mossad, but in fact it has been revealed he is a victim of torture, fabricated indictment and a conspiracy by those who planned to undermine the STL's indictment (Special Tribunal for Lebanon http://www.stl-tsl.org) which accuses four persons affiliated to the so-called Hizbullah in Killing Rafic Hariri.
Tarek Rabaa holds two university degrees, a Bachelor in telecom engineering and a Master degree in business administration with distinction. He started his career in 1993 as electronic engineer at Cablevision, a private cable tv company and in 1995 he started his job at Cellis as a transmission engineer. Cellis was owned by France Telecom and Najib Mikati until 2004 during which the company brand name has changed to Alfa with a new management company called Fal-Dete. Fal-Dete had managed the cellular network until November 2008 and was replaced by Orascom, an egyptian company, until today. The CEO of Cellis was Salah Bouraad with many names for the technical director position such as Bernard Limeul, Lionel Coussi, Patrick Soulard and Patrick Eid. The CEO for Fal-Dete was Ineke Botter and since 2008 three CEO changed from Kamal Bou Farhat to Samer Salameh to end by Marwan Hayek. The CTO (Chief Technical Officer) for Fal-Dete was Felix Wass and for Orascom Lebanon Assad Abou Sleiman. Tarek Rabaa has acquired a strong experience in the field of microwave transmission engineering and his name becomes prominent in this domain as an expert with 17 years of experience. He got promoted to head of transmission engineering unit in 1999 but he couldn't reach higher positions in 2005 because of sectarianism in the company. Tarek is married with no children and he was travelling either to attend trainings and conferences or for having treatment and tourism.
Tarek was among the employees who deal with the suppliers for transmission equipment Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, Huawei and Tellabs and he travelled to France, Finland, Sweden, Italy and many other countries as part of his work.
Tarek Rabaa is a Muslim Sunni, raised in Tarik al Jadidah district in Beirut. He is known by his sincerity, transparency, generosity and ethics. On May 7, 2008 the so-called Hizbullah invaded Beirut but he excluded Tarik al Jadidah for strategical and tactical considerations to target this district by arresting Tarek Rabaa in 2010.

Tarek Rabaa's arrest circumstances:
The last trip for Tarek Rabaa before his detention was in April 2010 to Germany aimed at to visit his brother-in-law. The trip was for one week but it was extended to 15 days because of airports' closure due to Iceland's volcano. After his safe return to Lebanon, he was working on the ministry of telecom's plan to expand the transmission network to cope with the fast increase of subscribers in Lebanon with Marwan Hayek assigned as CEO for Alfa. In June 2010, Charbel Kazzi was arrested and charged for collaborating with the Mossad. Charbel Kazzi, a technician, was the head of Radio and Transmission sub-unit in a maintenance department and his office was in Libatel building co-located with dozens of Alfa's employees. Charbel Kazzi was part of the maintenance department, while Tarek Rabaa was part of the engineering department. However, the activity of each department is independent but inter-departmental coordination is needed to improve the network performance. The engineering department has many units which has a planning role whereas the maintenance department's role is to maintain the quality targets set by the ministry of telecom as key performance indicators. The engineering department deals with planning and follows with the suppliers the executions of the ministry's plans then transfer the network to the maintenance department.
After the arrest of Charbel Kazzi, the 8 of March politicians had demanded to hang the spies, thus giving a political cover to the army's intelligence to arrest more and more. The intelligence was visiting Alfa offices daily and Tarek Rabaa was attending to his work normally until July 12, 2010.
Tarek reports directly to his line manager Farid Baz who was the head of Engineering department and indirectly to the CTO and the CEO and he has, as part of his job description, contacts with local and multinational suppliers as well as with the ministry of telecom and the telecom regulatory authority.
Moreover, the minister of telecom at that time was Charbel Nahhas who is a follower to Michel Aoun who has signed a treaty with the so-called Hizbullah. Also, Marwan Hayek is belonging to Aoun's movement and the president of the telecom regulatory body is also pro March 8 coalition.

What happened on July 12, 2010? The real story:
Two weeks after arresting Charbel Kazzi, Tarek Rabaa was summoned to the ministry of defense (on July 12, 2010) where the military intelligence had investigated a french number Tarek had denied to be for any intelligence organization, yet he was subject to torture because he refused their plot regarding the infiltration to the cellular network and suddenly they announced on TV and newspapers the arrest of Tarek Rabaa as a suspected telecom spy.

Unlawful file:
The military intelligence had detained Tarek unlawfully for 32 days without any arrest warrant. After 16 days of kidnapping, on July 27, 2010, the military prosecutor Sakr Sakr, known by the government's delegate to the military tribunal, requested to arrest Tarek and to keep him in the ministry of defense underground detention center. On July 28, 2010 Sakr Sakr wrongly charged Tarek for collaborating with the Mossad and he demanded to arrest and to investigate with him while he was already arbitrary detained and tortured in the ministry of defense. Tarek Rabaa's file was fabricated before the order of Sakr Sakr and without any monitoring or auditing and he was afterwards swinging from a judge to another in a malicious way while his family was completely unaware of what was going on and unable to meet with him for 42 days.
All procedures applied until today are unlawful and weird. For example, two arrest warrants were issued but they were registered in the registry record as follows: on page 1, the case was founded by the military investigate judge Samih el Hajj on August 4, 2010 who issued an arrest warrant on August 5, 2010 before interrogating Tarek & without a lawyer. (All unlawful process was hidden to his lawyer). On August 12, 2010 the first military investigate judge Riad Abu Ghayda issued the formal arrest warrant after 32 days of arbitrary detention, but the registry record was falsified by stating on page 3 that the case was founded on July 28, 2010 by Riad Abu Ghayda! How Abu Ghayda who received the file after Samih el Hajj will have a registry date previous to Samih el Hajj? The case is full of infringements & violations of the lebanese law to the extent the tribunal headed by general Nizar Khalil has replied on all the infringements by considering as normal the unlawful process in swinging the file from a judge to another, the manipulation in the dates and the pages numbers, the arbitrary detention, and 108 days of physical and psychological torture.
As for his lawyer Nada Rabaa, they didn't inform her about the arrest warrant, they prevented her to meet with Tarek and her role was just to attend the interrogation sessions and nothing else. Then, Tarek was not only deprived of his defense but also his lawyer was not allowed to perform her tasks. Tarek had complained the torture & told the military investigate judge about the maltreatment in the ministry of defense but he didn't consider the pain and he didn't entrust any so-called forensic doctor when he saw his very bad physical & psychological situation. The case of Tarek is full of violations, infringements and even plenty of falsifications perpetrated by high ranking level officers in the state of Lebanon which triggered a coalition of seven international organizations to promptly demand last year the lebanese state to investigate the torture and arbitrary detention and to release Tarek immediately.
Falsified indictment and the plot reveals:
Tarek's file contains neither confession nor evidence and he was suspected based on a French number belonging to a Taxi company called Welcome V&V in Tregastel France. While Tarek was arbitrary detained in the ministry of defense detention center (underground), the so-called Hizbullah & pro-syrians party in Lebanon have triggered a wide defamation campaign telling the Lebanese worldwide, the telecom sector in Lebanon is infiltrated by the israelians after arresting those spies in Alfa company. As a result, they added, the CDR (Call Data Registry) is tampered and subsequently the indictment to issue by the special tribunal for Lebanon is not reliable anymore. What has been revealed lately that Tarek Rabaa didn't confess for spying and no evidences against him but seven international organizations have announced Tarek Rabaa a victim of torture and arbitrary detention but the state in Lebanon is careless and pretend transparency in the military court headed by Nizar Khalil who is pro 8 of March coalition.
Tarek's family rallied many times to raise the voice high to stop the oppression and they have wondered the suspicious silence of Alfa which didn't announce till today the irrelevancy between Tarek and the CDRs. Tarek Rabaa is in jail since 19 months and he was suspected wrongly based on a French number which has been revealed to be for a Taxi company named Welcome V&V in France. The number is +33607867583 used by Vanni Tran Vivier, a manager for a transport company in France (please check this link http://www.numero-tva.info/numero-tva/01/86/01860512.html). This number called Tarek on his mobile one time he was attending a training course at Alcatel-Lucent University in 2007. The military intelligence did a mistake intentionally in identifying the number and accused Tarek for spying by saying the number is for the Mossad. Knowing that Welcome V&V was used by Alcatel-Lucent to transport Tarek from the train station in Gingan to the Grand hotel in Perros-Guerec. However when Charbel Kazzi was arrested based on different numbers, the military intelligence had found among Charbel Kazzi's data calls the same French number who called him in 2008 when he was selected by Alfa company to attend a training at Alcatel-Lucent University. Then the military intelligence committed the ERROR by not verifying the owner of the number and they had made the link to accuse Tarek for spying. As long as Tarek was saying NO, he was tortured beastly to end by considering the ex technical director of Cellis Lionel Coussi as the recruiter of Tarek. During the public interrogation of Tarek in the court he has revealed that he didn't meet with Lionel Coussi since 1997 and the intelligence had used this name in the file until 2010 by a scenario directed by the ministry of defense. Please check this link to see who's Lionel Coussi (http://www.linkedin.com/pub/lionel-coussi/17/652/b71) it's a scandal for at least the military intelligence, the so-called Hizbullah, for Alfa company from one side and for the state of Lebanon from another side.
The resistance did many press conferences pretending the violation of telecom network in Lebanon without any evidence but they pre-sentenced Tarek as spy. They have used some paid reporters like Hassan Illeik to support their non-logical story. Tarek Rabaa's lawyer Nada Rabaa has published an article regarding the case of no case explaining by evidences the innocence of Tarek of such fabricated prosecution and has asked where's the crime? Is travelling to Europe is prohibited? Does receiving a call from a taxi company is not allowed?. Then the case is purely political and not legal at all. From another side, the foreign suppliers already have the infos about every technical detail in Alfa network, so what more to spy on?

Why they had targeted Tarek Rabaa? The chronological facts:
Since Tarek didn't confess for spying in all stages of interrogations and investigations, they fabricated a falsified story by force and torture. The motive behind accusing Tarek Rabaa with a fabricated indictment has at least 5 major reasons:
1. To decredibilize the STL's indictment which accuses four persons affiliated to the so-called Hizbullah
2. To have a pretext to support the fiber optic project costing 60 millions US dollars by pretending it's more secure than microwave links and if the project will not be approved they will accuse the government to not working for the sake of the country.
3. To protect and cover the military intelligence after torturing Tarek & arbitrary detained him.
4. To likely protect the real spies by distracting the lebanese authorities by arresting wrongly a suspected engineer such as Tarek Rabaa.
5. Alcatel-Lucent wanted to retaliate for loosing its market share in Lebanon against Huawei in 2008.

The chronological facts of the PLOT:
1. On 23 May, 2009 Der Spiegel published a report revealing that the special tribunal for Lebanon STL will indict the Resistance in assassinating Rafic al Hariri based on cellular data calls.

2. Afterwards, the lebanese intelligence departments become suddenly active and they arrested more than 70 suspected spies until they arrested Charbel Kazzi in June 2010 & Tarek Rabaa in July 2010. Subsequently the resistance had triggered a wide TV campaign targeting in advance the STL's indictment which will accuse them based on the CDR (Call Data Registry). The resistance pre-sentenced Tarek regardless of what happened with him in the ministry of defense and they told the Lebanese that the telecom sector was manipulated and the data was tampered by the israelians to jump to a conclusion: the STL indictment is not reliable.

3. On July 15, 2010, thus 3 days after detaining arbitrary Tarek, the Telecom Regulatory Authority (TRA) headed by Dr Imad rushed to meet with the ex prime minister Saad Hariri and with the deputy so-called Hassan Fadlullah from the resistance under a pretext 'network security issue'. They were very active to diffuse an image showing the telecom network as under attack. Meanwhile, Tarek was detained and the first so-called investigation report was dated July 27, 2010 not ratified or signed by Tarek. This confirms that their plan to act as if really the telecom networks are under attack and they stressed on the urgent approval on the fiber optics project.

4. On November 1, 2010, the first military investigator judge Riad Abu Ghayda finalized Tarek Rabaa's interrogation without any confession for spying in spite of all types of pressures they performed on Tarek including physical torture.

5. On November 21, 2010, the CBC newspaper published a new report confirming the STL's indictment will accuse the resistance based on cellular phone calls used in Hariri assassination.

6. On November 23, 2010 the ex minister of telecom Charbel Nahhas together with the telecom regulatory authority as well as the deputy Hassan rushed to carry out a conference press pretending the violation of Telecom sector under the cover of Alfa chairman Marwan Hayek. They based their conference press on the assumption of suspected spies Charbel Kazzi & Tarek Rabaa. At that time, Tarek was transferred to Roumieh jail without indictment yet, but suffering from injuries.

7. Few days after the famous press conference, Riad Abu Ghayda issued on December 6, 2011 a wrong indictment based on lies and he transferred Tarek to the court for prosecution. Riad abu Ghayda had lied in his indictment and he was influenced by the press and the military intelligence.

8. On December 24, 2010 Al-Akhbar newspaper which is pro 8 of March coalition published on its first page a story defaming Tarek Rabaa and it was followed with a TV campaign on al-MANAR & on NBN pre-sentencing Tarek as a spy. The article was prepared by a paid reporter Hassan Illeik who is very close to the military intelligence.

9. On June 2011 the STL issued its indictment accusing 4 persons from the resistance to kill Rafic Hariri and the campaign against Tarek was re-triggered again by al-Manar TV by insisting on considering Tarek as a spy while he's still under prosecution in the military tribunal where he has manifested self-confidence of being innocent from their fabricated stories.
Tarek confirmed not meeting, not contacting and not working for any intelligence group. Tarek explained to the court that he has no decision in the company and all fundings as well as engineering projects are approved by the ministry of Telecom and Alfa management. While Nizar Khalil, the head of the court was interrogating Tarek, the STL issued the indictment. The court had cut the interrogation and postponed Tarek 2.5 months to see what the resistance position will be.

10. From another side, the minister of telecom Charbel Nahhas took the opportunity last year to use Tarek story as pretext to have the approval on the Fiber optic project to say it is safer than microwave and he got this 60 millions$ project though no justified need at that time. Lately, in 2011 the hidden goal has been revealed in Tarchiche area. The resistance planned to use implicitly and discretely the fiber network of the ministry of telecommunication. To cover the project they activated 3G in Lebanon with a very bad quality.

This is a part of the scandal behind targeting Tarek Rabaa: the STL indictment, the private transmission network of the resistance as well as personal interests in the ministry of telecom and last but not least to cover the torture, arbitrary detention, the violation of law and to uncover the real spies. Tarek is still in jail victim of their agenda and he is for sure innocent from their fabrications and lies.
Tarek is an employee who follows orders and he cannot do any expansion in the transmission network without the approval of Alfa management and the ministry of telecom. He has been accused of knowing an agent in the Mossad called Lionel to discover that Lionel is Lionel Coussi who was working in Lebanon for the account of France Telecom.

Until today, the military court is refusing to release Tarek Rabaa because the so-called Hizbullah is impeding that because he fears the scandal and the consequences of using Tarek Rabaa as a scapegoat to decredibilize the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
This is a real story of a pretented spying case which has been communicated to public with an obvious target and scandalous file.

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