BEIRUT: News emerged Friday that the powerful former head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon Rustom Ghazaleh has passed away.

But reports conflicted over his cause of death, and when and where he died. The news comes nearly two months after he was reported to have been badly beaten by Syrian security forces.

“He died at 7:00 a.m. today (Friday) in a Damascus hospital and will be buried tomorrow in the capital,” AFP cited a family member as saying. The family source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Ghazaleh suffered from hypertension.

The source said that Ghazaleh had been fired after getting into a fight with another Syrian official in early March. The source did not elaborate.

The Associated Press said Ghazaleh died in a hospital in the Syrian capital, citing the director of the Britain-based Syrian Observatoryfor Human Rights Rami Abdul Rahman. He did not say when Ghazaleh passed away, but that medical sources told him the ex-spy chief had been clinically dead for weeks, following a severe head injury suffered about two months ago.

Ghazaleh was reportedly severely beaten in early March upon orders from Syrian military intelligence Chief Lt. Gen. Rafik Shehadeh. He was moved to the Shami Hospital in Damascus after the beating, which occurred at Shehadeh’s office, sources had told The Daily Star at the time.

The sources said the incident resulted from anger at Ghazaleh over a simmering dispute believed to involve the role of non-Syrian forces such as Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah in directing the war effort.

Lebanese news site Elnashra said Ghazali’s death resulted from the beating and electric shocks he received from Shehadeh’s bodyguards, which caused “atrophies in his chest muscles.”

The report said the man left hospital shortly after the incident and was then brought back in after he suddenly fainted. Doctors had to open a hole in Ghazaleh’s throat to help him breath, Elnashra said.

Ghazaleh succeeded Ghazi Kanaan as head of military intelligence in Lebanon in 2002 during Syria’s tutelage over Lebanon, which lasted until Damascus pulled its troops from the country in 2005.

It is widely speculated that he was one of the men who orchestrated the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Damascus denies any involvement in the 2005 killing.

In 2012, Ghazaleh was appointed the chief of Syria’s infamous political security branch.

 

 

https://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Lebanon-News/2015/Apr-24/295615-former-syrian-intelligence-chief-in-lebanon-rustom-ghazali-has-died-media-sources.ashx