US stymies effort to re-open Qana probe ,Crucial witness faces deportation from US…

“A campaign by American lawyers to re-open the investigation into the Qana massacre suffered a setback after the US government said it intended to deport Haidar Bitar, one of two survivors striving to force the release of crucial evidence suppressed by the United Nations.”
“The lawyers fear "Israeli" retaliation if he is deported back to Qana, and legal proceedings have been launched to reverse Washington’s decision. Bitar, 36, has lived in Detroit for the past six years. He was visiting Lebanon at the time of the massacre and not returned since his two eldest sons, Hadi and Abdel-Mohsen, aged eight and nine, were killed in the slaughter.”
“Bitar’s counsel, Mary Ramadan, and two other American lawyers filed a petition with the UN earlier this year seeking to re-open the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the "Israeli" bombardment of the Fijian Unifil headquarters in Qana on April 18, 1996, in which 107 civilians were killed.”
“When the petition was filed, there was no guarantee that it would be taken up by the UN commission for human rights (UNCHR). However, Ramadan said that the organisation has accepted to review the petition and has delivered it to "Israel", giving it 12 weeks to respond in accordance with regulations.
“This is good news and we’re at the stage where we wanted to be,” she told The Daily Star. Concerns for the plaintiffs’ security prompted the UNCHR to allow them to withdraw certain affidavits before the petition was sent to "Israel", Ramadan said.
“While the lawyers are delighted at the petition’s progress, they are concerned over the decision by the US immigration and naturalisation service to deport Bitar.”
“I have grave concerns about his safety after filing this petition and his being the only named petitioner,” Ramadan said. “I don’t imagine it would be too difficult for Israel to retaliate if he was (in Lebanon). I’ve made requests to human-rights organisations and the UN to intervene, at least while this is pending.”
“She added that Bitar had only been named in the petition on the belief that he would be allowed to stay in the US. “They’ve denied his request for protection. This is a violation of US refugee laws. I don’t see how they could deport him,” she said.
“Ramadan goes to trial over the issue on December 30.”
“The lawyers believe that a new investigation into the massacre will bring to light secret evidence obtained by the UN which was considered too sensitive to include in the original UN report released in May, 1996.”
“It is believed that the suppressed evidence contains enough material to provide a damning indictment of “Israel’s” culpability for the massacre and for gross violations of human rights during the Grapes of Wrath operation.”
“The petition was filed under rules allowing individuals to lodge complaints with the UNCHR when there is evidence of a “consistent pattern of gross and reliably attested violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms … recognised in … international conventions”.
“The 35-page petition, filed with 60 exhibits including photographs and videotapes, contains a detailed account of the circumstances leading to, and during, the massacre and the subsequent investigation conducted by Maj Gen Franklin Van Kappen, then military adviser to the UN secretary-general.
Van Kappen’s report concluded that “while the possibility cannot be ruled out completely, the pattern of impacts in the Qana area makes it unlikely that the shelling of the UN compound was the result of technical and/or procedural errors”.
“However, the petition claims that further evidence exists that if released would categorically prove that the "Israelis" deliberately intended to kill civilians.”
“An original draft of the Van Kappen report included a statement that the artillery salvoes not only targetted the Fijian compound itself but also the entrance to the base, the very spot where the majority of civilians were gathered. The petition quotes an un-named senior UN official who saw the draft as saying: “This is the most devastating item in his report … It seems they knew where most of the civilians were and aimed for that area.”
“The final draft omitted this crucial observation.”
“The petition also includes comments made to an "Israeli" newspaper by the gunners and officer responsible for the slaughter, in which they referred to the victims as “Arab rats”.
“The process is secret at this stage and the American lawyers will not be told of the "Israeli" response to the petition.”