Was the incident that marred Sarkozy’s exit a suicide or assassination try?

Something went terribly wrong on Tuesday afternoon, at the departure ceremony for French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni, at Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel.

The band had just started up its loud farewell repertoire. Sarkozy, President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Olmert clasped hands in unity for the cameras.

Suddenly a shot was heard, or not heard, depending on where you were standing. Radios came alive and there was a flurry of activity. Bodyguards did not dive on the VIPs, but security rushed the Israeli dignitaries away to their armor plated limousines. Sarkozy’s wife scurried up the stairs to the plane, her husband following behind her. If there was a threat, they would have been wide-open targets as they climbed in panic to the plane without protection.

The Israeli media dutifully reported the official account that exactly at that most opportune moment for an assassination, with the band’s music covering the sound of the shot, a veteran soldier in an elite Border Guard unit, of Druse extraction, decided to kill himself. He was reportedly on a roof in line of site from the departure ceremony, 100 yards away and equipped with a rifle with a 400 yard range. Not only did he shoot himself, he fell off the roof. Not an easy feat!

From the Daily Telegraph, we learn that the border policeman shot himself in the head with his rifle, also an unnatural task. He was said to have killed himself in front of his "guarding partner," and two female soldiers, who — the media informed Israelis — fainted and had to be taken to the hospital. It was the first time in memory that IDF soldiers — male or female — were reported to have fainted.

Ynetnews reports that Shin Bet security service officials found the border policeman lying on the ground below, with his "guarding partner" huddled over the body.

According to Haaretz, "officials soon ruled out the option that he accidentally shot himself before the fall, or that his gun misfired upon impact with the ground, and concluded that he apparently committed suicide using his M-16 rifle, causing him to fall off the building. An autopsy of the body confirmed their conclusion."

The assembled media was whisked away and, remarkably, the subsequent reports were either subdued or suppressed altogether. The midnight news summary of government-owned television Channel One did not even report the incident.

So far as Israel Insider could determine, there have no subsequent reports from his "guarding partner," nor the female soldiers. There were no follow up reports to speak of. It was an "open and shut case" as far as they mainstream media in Israel were concerned.

The one discordant note came from the family of the Druze soldier who reportedly committed suicide on the job, without a note. Border Police officials said the man, a member of the Druze community, had served as a border policeman for eight years since he was discharged from mandatory service in the Israel Defense Forces. The dead officer was identified as Raid Asaad Ghanan, 32, of the Druze village of Beit Jan.

The Druze, a mysterious sect that was an offshot of Islam, are Israeli citizens generally opposed the Palestinians. Within the IDF, they are known as well-disciplined and loyal soldiers. Many serve in the border guard, like Ghanan, who had completed eight years of service. While there has been some ferment in the Golan Heights among Druze who were previously Syrian citizens, and some high profile expressions of support by some Druze for anti-Israel causes, these have been the exceptions, not the rule.

As reported by ynetnews, Ghanan’s relatives furiously refused to believe that he had committed suicide: "We scornfully reject the claims that our son took his own life," a family member said. "He was a kindhearted and happy person. He had a family and there was no reason for him to do such a horrible thing."

The officer’s father, Asaad Ghanan, said that his son had left the house on Tuesday morning in good spirits. "He had a family, he had friends, he had plans for the future and had no reason to commit suicide," the father said.

Naif, Raid’s brother, said that the police representatives who informed the family of their son’s death, had told them that the circumstances of the incidents were unclear and would be probed by an investigating officer.

"It is unthinkable that my brother took his own life. We believe this was an accident, or even an incident in which my brother was accidentally shot by one of the security officials in the area."

But senior officials immediately and absolutely ruled out one possibility: "This was in no way an assassination attempt," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. "A border policeman committed suicide during the farewell ceremony."

Yet the mystery remains: a distinguished soldier with no proclivity for suicide, without leaving a note, standing at a vantage point with a long-range rifle n line of sight of the VIPs, should at the absolutely most ideal moment for an assassination at once shoot himself in the head with a rifle and somehow find a way to fall off the roof? What an odd simultaneous set of coincidences!

A man is dead, a soldier who had no known motive to kill himself. And yet the authorities rushed to confirm that it was a suicide, and not the accidental discharge of a bullet which, however rarely, can happen, but apparently did not in this case.

The alternative explanation, given the exquisite timing and the other coincidences, is that it was an attempted assassination, targeting one or more of the three heads of state, that failed. Possible alternatives might be: Ghanan was the shooter and was felled by his "guarding partner," the guarding partner was the assassin who sought to eliminate a potential witness or preventer of the crime, or to make it appear that he shot dead the would-be assassin, making the dead Ghanan into a patsy that could not defend himself from the grave. Or another Israeli sniper may have detected what were perceived to be suspicious movements on the roof and shot Ghanan, appropriately or erroneously, causing him to fall off.

The fact that no shot hit a head of state means that the issue can be safely swept under the rug, except of course for the Ghanan family and any witnesses who saw what really happened, or who were personally involved in the rooftop drama. For them it was a tragedy and a trauma, if not a crime.

This is not an allegation of a conspiracy, but a query about odd circumstances and unanswered questions. At this time, no one has offered concrete proof of foul play, and there is every reason to believe that no one every will. The "guarding partner" and the female soldiers will be kept far from the media.

There is every motive to do so for the powers that be: an assassination attempt during an official ceremony for a visiting head of state would be a security failure of catastrophic proportions. Thus there is a national security interest in covering up a possible assassination attempt, so that foreign leaders will not think twice before coming to visit security-conscious Israel, the reputed world leader in personal VIP protection.

But one suspects that foreign VIPs, should they dare to visit, may no longer tarry on the tarmac. Hearing the Israeli marching band is just not worth it.

– http://web.israelinsider.com/Articl...