 There is "converging evidence" of both Syrian and Lebanese involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, a UN investigation says.
| Whoa! Careful with that feather! You almost knocked me over! |
Led by veteran German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, the probe into the 14 February killing of al-Hariri has established "that many leads point directly towards Syrian security officials as being involved with the assassination".
| But... I thought the witnesses were all dead? |
The report was handed over to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday morning, and Annan transmitted the report to the 15-nation Security Council and the Lebanese government on Thursday evening. The report said that it was well known that Syrian military intelligence had a pervasive presence in Lebanon at least until the withdrawal of Syrian forces in line with UN Security Council resolution 1559. "Given the infiltration of Lebanese institutions and society by the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services working in tandem, it would be difficult to envisage a scenario whereby such a complex assassination plot could have been carried out without their knowledge," the report said.
| If you're gonna be in the driver's seat, you're gonna leave your prints on the steering wheel... |
Because of this, it is now incumbent on Syria "to clarify a considerable part of the unresolved questions" facing investigators, the report said.
| Y'mean, like who the actual button men were? |
The Mehlis commission said its findings to date indicated that the truck bombing that killed al-Hariri and 20 others in the streets of Beirut was carried out by a group "with an extensive organisation and considerable resources and capabilities". The strongly worded report by Mehlis said the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services kept tabs on al-Hariri before his assassination by wiretapping his phone, and there was evidence a telecommunications antenna was jammed near the scene of the car bomb that killed him and 20 others on 14 February.
| That little bit doesn't quite fit the al-Qaeda style, does it? |
"The crime had been prepared over the course of several months," it said. The report also said that Syrian officials including Foreign Minister Faruq al-Shara had sought to mislead its investigation.
| No! Reeeeeaaally? They wouldn't do that, would they? |
"While the Syrian authorities, after initial hesitation, have cooperated to a limited degree
several interviewees tried to mislead the investigation," the commission said in its report. "The letter addressed to the Commission by the Foreign Minister of the Syrian Arab Republic proved to contain false information," it said.
| Maybe we need a stoopid meter? |
The report said a Syrian witness living in Lebanon who claimed to have worked for Syrian intelligence in Lebanon told the commission that "senior Lebanese and Syrian officials decided to assassinate Rafiq al-Hariri" about two weeks after the UN Security Council adopted a resolution in September 2004 demanding the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon. The witness, who was not identified, claimed a senior Lebanese security official went to Syria several times to plan the crime. At the beginning of January 2005, a high-ranking Syrian officer posted in Lebanon told the witness that "Hariri was a big problem to Syria".
| Wotta buncha dumbasses. Seems he's become an even bigger problem now that he's dead. |
"Approximately a month later the officer told the witness that there soon would be an `earthquake' that would re-write the history of Lebanon," the report said.
| Seems to have happened, doesn't it? Only not the way they intended. |
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