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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Key Witness In Hariri Probe Gets Three-Year Jail Sentence |
| 2006-06-30 |
| Beirut, 30 June (AKI) - A court in Beirut sentenced in absentia to three years in jail a Lebanese woman considered a key witness into the Rafik Hariri assassination probe. Rana Abd ar-Rahim Qoleilat, 39, was convicted on charges of bank fraud, falsifying documents and leaving the country illegally. The woman is however also considered a key witness in the UN probe into the February 2005 car-bomb murder of Hariri and 20 others. Qoleitat was arrested in Brazil in March after 18 months in the run and is still detained there. Four accomplices of the woman were sentenced to three months in jail for helping her flee Lebanon. Since mid-2003, Qoleitat has been linked to the scandal of the Lebanese al-Madina bank, where she worked as an executive secretary. The bank - which collapsed in early 2003, losing depositors several hundred million dollars - was according to investigators involved in laundering money from the illegal activities of the regime of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. The German magistrate Detlev Mehlis, who until last December headed the UN probe into the death of Hariri, suspected that al-Madina was linked to the attack on the former premier. In a draft version of his report in October 2005, Mehlis wrote that "fraud corruption and money laundering, with the possible involvement of the al-Madina bank could have encouraged other people to take part on an individual basis in the operation [the attack against Hariri]." Mehlis concluded: The Lebanese authorities should investigate in every possible direction including that of banking transactions through the al-Madina bank." As a result, Qoleitat's name was reportedly added to the list of the key witnesses that the UN inquiry wanted to question. Lebanon has no extradition accord with Brazil, and Lebanese authorities are considering to ask for the intervention of the UN commission of inquiry to intervene to try to repatriate Qoleitat. Under UN resolution 1595, which obliges all UN member countries to cooperate with the Hariri probe, Brazil cannot refuse a request from international commissioners. |
| Posted by:Steve |