During last week’s appearance before the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Jamil Al Sayyed was a combative witness, questioning both the legitimacy of the trial and the investigation into the 2005 killing of former prime minister Rafik Hariri.
As the head of the country’s general security at the time of the assassination, Mr Al Sayyed was initially tasked with scrutinising the murder before international investigators were brought in.
“If they had left the matter in our hands, we would have been able to reach a better result,” he said during his testimony.
Instead, the case was transferred to the UN International Independent Investigation Commission.
Mr Al Sayyed’s contempt for the commission was clear last week. “When I look into your glassy eyes, I realise that Hitler isn’t dead. He’s still living in you,” he told judges as he recounted an encounter with a member of the UN investigation.
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Why Jamil Al-Sayyed is a symbol of Lebanon's shifting winds
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Mr Al Sayyed and three other Lebanese security officials associated with Syria’s occupation of Lebanon were held in custody for four years in connection with the case, being released only after an order by a judge at the tribunal.
In 2011, four years after being established, the tribunal indicted five men — Mustafa Amine Badreddine, Hussein Hassan Oneissi, Salim Jamil Ayyash, Assad Hassan Sabra, and Hassan Habib Merhi — on charges of terrorism and murder.
The five were all believed to be high-ranking members of Hezbollah, and all are being tried in their absence.
Hezbollah, with whom the 68-year-old Mr Al Sayyed is politically allied, has called the tribunal an illegitimate Zionist plot.
During his testimony, Mr Al Sayyed also recognised Lebanon’s most significant political fissure.
“Almost half of Lebanon is with Syria and the other half is against Syria, but Lebanon cannot be governed without the other half. This is the nature of the country,” Mr Al Sayyed said.
Such polarisation is one of the possible reasons for the apparent lack of public interest.
“No matter what the outcome, a good portion will continue to think what they think,” said Joe Macaron, a fellow at the Arab Center in Washington DC. “I think people have their minds set.”
Lebanon’s various sects each have their own stories — Mr Al Sayyed last week testified that Mr Hariri had never supported UN resolution 1559, which called for a full Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon as well as the disarmament of Hezbollah.
It ran contrary to the notion that he had been killed because of his support for it, he said. Mr Al Sayyed also presented Mr Hariri as someone who remained supportive of Syria until his assassination, and blamed Israel and the US for his death.
“There is no doubt that this is highly politicised and the fact that it took so much time — I was in the first delegation that was invited to visit the tribunal five or six years ago. We were expecting tangible results before that,” said Sami Nader, who directs the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs in Beirut.
“It can serve as a benchmark for the Lebanese justice system, and it hasn’t done that either,” Mr Nader said.
But the time the STL has taken is not exceptional said Benjamin Durr, an expert on international criminal proceedings.
“That’s one of the problems of international law and the tribunals — it takes so long and the people who were affected by the crimes and the communities and the countries very often have moved on,” he said. “The tribunal for Yugoslavia closed last year — that lasted 25 years."
However, the STL is unique among international tribunals as “terrorism … has never been a charge, it’s not a core international crime”, Mr Durr said.
“It’s also never happened before that trials have been held [for defendants] in absentia.”
Mr Al Sayyed turned down a request from The National to comment further on his testimony.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
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