HOW I WAS INFORMED OF THE EXECUTION
AND WHAT WAS ITS REMIFICATIONS
I was still hiding at Francis Saleh's home on Madam Currie Boulevard in Ras Beirut. I mentioned that I was feeling like a prisoner in that house turned atelier. My wife took pity on me and one night she sent my daughter, Hanna, still ten months old to me accompanied by now deceased attorney comrade Emil Najm. I took the infant and started kissing her while she was screaming. The female workers had already left. There was no one in the house except me. Hanan was embarrassing me with her screaming. She had forgotten her daddy. I told Emil: “Take her back to her mother before she sends me to prison…”
Another time, still at the beginning of my recluse in this hideaway, my wife came with her sisters Faridah, Dr. Tawfiq Farah's wife, and Leyla, Francis's fiancé. All three sisters took pity on me and my predicament since I was sitting between four walls with no friend till night. They asked me to go for a ride with them toward the airport. We took off in Leila's car. Faridah was singing “Ya Rabii al Shabab Ma Ahlak,” (O Spring of Life How Beautiful you are)…I was just opening my chest to the June evening breeze. We were now in the proximity of Beirut International Airport. We returned in one piece. Suddenly and out of nowhere a military police transport truck appeared. I was sitting in the back, between my wife and Faridah. Leila and her fiancé were in the front. I asked Faridah to continue singing and she did. I told her” Don't be afraid at all. If you fear that means that I will go to prison.” We reached the military police checkpoint that was now set up on the street. One of the military police looked at us and said: “How awesome. Are you riding for fun?” And he signaled us by his hand to cross the checkpoint. We speeded up and my wife told me that one of the military police was telling another: “It was Abdallah Qubersi.” I looked back and saw that nobody was following us. Later when I gave myself up in through Col. Bridi in September of 1949 he told me: “Do you remember your ride to the airport. One of my men knew you at the checkpoint. However, they decided to let you go. I used to tell them to treat you well if and when they saw you. After all, aren't you the military police's attorney when we are sewed? We must return your favor with a favor.”
My days were gloomy. I read the newspapers. I read Victor Hugo's “La Miserable”… I also read [Tomas] Carlyle's writings about how mysterious the human being is. I just read without getting tired. I was also disturbed and finicky to the extreme. My nervousness rose after I heard the news of our defunct revolution. I was waiting for the news every day.
On July 7, 1949, my wife came to tell me that al Hadaf newspaper, owned and edited by my friend, comrade Zuhayr Usayran, had published a news item, which stated that Husni al Za'im had handed over Antoine Saadeh to the Lebanese authorities and that the government ordered all issues of the newspaper to be confiscated. ..
I told my wife: “What do you think.” She answered: “The leader is now trapped.” I quickly shunned her saying: “Can something like this happen when he [Saadeh] is a guest of and under the protection of a person like Husni al Za'im. Moreover, Riyad al Sulh has now been saying for three days and to no avail that Saadeh will fall into the trap during hours. If he really got him he will announce it through the radio and all the newspapers. Therefore, I don't think that the leader is trapped. He is a man that knows how to take charge in difficult situations…”
I confess now that al Hadaf's news item disturbed me a lot. I was disturbed because I knew that Riyad al Sulh had very good relations with the Usayran family and especially with Adel and Zuhayr Usayran (who later became the head of the journalists' syndicate.
I didn't sleep that night. I thought that even if Saadeh was apprehended he couldn't be executed with such swiftness. When the sound of the twelve bullets that tore his chest was heard during that night I did not shiver but asked myself: “What were these bullets for?”
