Mehlis: Hariri Murder Probe “Appears to Have Lost Momentum”
Former U.N. Chief investigator Detlev Mehlis has criticized his successor Serge Brammertz and warned that the vitality of the probe into ex-Premier Rafik Hariri”s Feb. 2005 murder may be disappearing.
“I haven”t seen a word in his reports during the past two years confirming that he has moved forward,” Mehlis told The Wall Street Journal over the weekend.
“A new commissioner has been installed. So it”s a good time for a very last summing up on my part,” Mehlis said.
He was referring to the appointment of former Canadian prosecutor Daniel Bellemare to head the Hariri probe after the Security Council approved Brammertz” nomination to head the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, starting Jan. 1.
Mehlis, who was the first U.N. chief investigator, has said in his reports that the Hariri plot”s complexity suggested that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services had a role, but Brammertz has not echoed his view.
Four pro-Syrian Lebanese generals have been under arrest for almost two years for alleged involvement in the
murder.
In his final appearance before the U.N. Security Council in December, Brammertz said that progress made in the last few months has enabled investigators to identify “a number of persons of interest” who may have been involved in some aspect of the crime — or knew about the preparations.
The investigation “appears to have lost the momentum it had until January 2006,” Mehlis said in the interview. “When I left we were ready to name suspects, but it seems not to have progressed from that stage.”
“If you have suspects you don”t allow them to roam free for years to tamper with evidence,” Mehlis told The Wall Street Journal.
The German prosecutor also criticized Brammertz for wasting valuable time in reopening analysis of the crime scene because the commission ended up confirming Mehlis” conclusion that Hariri had been killed by an above-ground explosion.
“We needed two years of investigative endeavor to discover this?” Mehlis wondered.
About the Belgian prosecutors” secrecy in conducting the inquiry, Mehlis said: “The Lebanese public has to be informed, even if there are setbacks in the investigation. In a democracy people have the right to know, particularly when a prime minister was murdered and people don”t trust the authorities.”
Mehlis also predicted that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon will be set up this summer, but “people should not expect a trial within the next two to three years, unless the investigation regains momentum.”
He feared that “suspects will end up in a judicial no-man”s land, with Lebanon claiming they are under the U.N.”s jurisdiction, and the U.N. saying that they must remain under Lebanese jurisdiction.”
“No one can abolish this tribunal. I may not be happy about the time frame, but am deeply convinced the case can be solved and will be solved,” he said.