The head of a UN probe into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri indicated yesterday his team would investigate Syrian officials who were in charge of security. "We will of course investigate everyone who was in one way or another responsible for security in Lebanon at the time of the crime," Detlev Mehlis told a news conference when asked if his team would be able to question Syrian officials and intelligence.Many Lebanese hold the Syrians at least indirectly responsible for the Feb. 14 attack which killed Hariri and 20 other people when his motorcade was bombed on Beirut's seafront. The UN Security Council ordered the investigation, which got under way on Thursday, after a UN fact-finding mission decided Lebanon's own inquiry was "seriously flawed". Veteran German prosecutor Mehlis said his commission expected to receive relevant information without delay. "Any country which may possess such information, be it judicial evidence or intelligence information, and does not provide it to the commission will bear the responsibility should we fail in our efforts to establish the truth," he said.
Mehlis showed photographs of a white Mitsubishi pick-up truck of the type German explosives investigators and Swiss experts determined was probably used in the attack. It was not yet clear whether the truck was moving or parked at the time of the blast, he said. Mehlis said his was a police and judicial investigation that would hand its findings to Lebanon's judiciary, which would decide on further moves and whether to make arrests. He said Lebanon had cooperated and supported his team so far. "Of course we will also investigate how the crime scene was handled, why it was handled in a certain way," he said.