Investigating Magistrate Elias Eid interrogated Jamil Sayyed, the arrested former chief of the Surete Generale, "for five-and-a-half hours Saturday," according to Lebanese judicial sources. Sayyed is one of four former top security chiefs who have been charged with planning, or executing the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri and of carrying out terrorist acts.The four officers, Sayyed, Raymond Azar, former head of Army Intelligence, Ali Hajj, former head of the Internal Security Forces, and Mustafa Hamdan, former head of the Presidential Guards, have been questioned several times since their arrest last August. The sources added that Azar, Hajj and Hamdan will also be questioned "based on new information," without elaborating on what that information was. The four former security chiefs are currently detained in Roumieh prison awaiting trial, with Hamdan, Hajj and Azar's several petitions for release on bail denied by the Lebanese Judiciary.
Meanwhile, Serge Brammertz, the head of the UN probe investigating the assassination of Hariri, was flown by a helicopter to Lebanon's Southern borders where he met with Alain Pelligrini, the head of the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon. According to Lebanon's National News Agency, "Brammertz discussed the position of the UNIFIL forces."
Brammertz is expected to head to Syria by the end of the month, as the international community has demanded that Syria offer full cooperation to the UN probe and present officials and citizens named by Brammertz for questioning. Brammertz is expected to present the UN with his first report on the case by mid-March. The sources speculated the report would contain information about the level of Syrian cooperation in the investigations.