 UN investigators probing the death of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri have uncovered leads in Beirut that point to high-level involvement in the plot to kill him, a report said yesterday. Der Spiegel weekly news magazine said the arrest of four allies of pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud at the weekend âcan mean a breakthrough and bring Syria to book.â
| It's only a start. Expect the bad guyz to wiggle and obfuscate and counterattack if they can get away with it — or if they're cornered and have nothing to lose... |
âThe UN team ... believes it can now prove that those arrested plotted the murder in an attempt to silence the former anti-Syrian prime minister,â it said. The leads include fingerprints found in an empty apartment in Beirut where it is believed the plot to kill Hariri was hatched and a car which was seen following his convoy on Feb. 14 just before it was struck by a powerful bomb that killed the premier and 19 other people. The car belongs to Lebanonâs former army intelligence director Raymond Azar, according to Der Spiegel, which is regularly reporting on the UN probe lead by German state prosecutor Detlev Mehlis.
| If that's true, it's a good indication that you don't have to pass an IQ test to sign up with Leb intelligence... |
It said Mehlis has also found a trail of telephone calls that âleads directly to the highest levels of the security apparatus.â
| That's downright sloppy. I guess they had it their own way for so long they eventually decided that there was no way anybody was going to bring them to book. That reinforces my opinion that they considered the Hariri boom nothing more than business as usual — they were probably surprised as hell when anything came of it. |
A Lebanese judge on Saturday ordered the four suspects to be held in custody after he questioned them about the murder and their arrest is seen as the first major step toward a trial in the case. They are Azar, presidential guard commander Mustafa Hamdan, former general security chief Jamil Al-Sayed and ex-internal security head Ali Al-Hage. Mehlis, however, has said that he believes they are âonly part of the pictureâ that makes up the plot to kill Hariri.
| Since there are strings tied to their limbs that run back to Syria that's not surprising... |
The investigatorâs mandate expires in October and he has accused Syria trying to stall his work, leading to calls from the international community to Damascus to cooperate. Syria has denied any involvement in the assassination which sparked a wave of public protests, prompting the departure of Syrian troops in April and transforming Lebanese politics. The state radio charged yesterday that the United States and its Western allies have âhatched a planâ to use the inquiry into the murder of Hariri to damage Syria.
| Toldja so. But with the position they're in, booming somebody in Beirut won't accomplish anything, and if they boom Mehlis or Mr. Presiding Judge they've made things a lot worse — they could end up with the 82nd Airborne and the French Paras in Damascus... |
Radio Damascus reaffirmed that Syria was prepared to cooperate in full with the UN inquiry but also seethed over continued accusations that it was implicated in the assassination of Hariri.
| Oh, I like it when they seethe... |
âSyria has nothing to hide and has no fear about the Hariri affair. On the contrary it has invited Mehlis to Damascus so that he can meet the people he would like to,â the radio said in its daily commentary. âNobody has any doubts about the honesty of Mehlis or about his capacity to discover the truth. But the leaders in Washington and other Western countries are trying to use this criminal affair to damage Syria after the failure of all their attempts to tarnish its image.â
| We're not doing the investigation, are we? |
âThe plan hatched against the region will damage Syria and also the whole Arab world. Besieging Syria and breaking its historic links with Lebanon are aimed at imposing foreign domination,â over the two countries, it alleged.
| Syria running Leb as a colony wasn't foreign domination? |
Syria has vehemently rejected allegations of involvement in the February bomb blast in Beirut that killed the anti-Damascus Hariri and 20 others. Mehlis wants to interrogate the former head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, Rustom Ghazali, and two other former top agents in Beirut. He is to hold talks in Syria on Saturday. |