BEIRUT: The Prosecutor-General of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) Daniel Bellemare has narrowed down his requested fingerprint records to only 10 individuals and 24 birth certificates for identified individuals from the Interior Ministry, but caretaker Interior Minister Ziyad Baroud was still procrastinating, a source close to the investigation told The Daily Star Monday.
The number of fingerprints demanded by Bellemare disputed earlier media reports and a statement by Hezbollah MP Mohammad Raad that the prosecutor general had requested the fingerprints of four million Lebanese.
Last month, documents obtained by The Daily Star showed that Baroud and three other caretaker ministers turned down requests from Bellemare to provide information and documents, in breach of the cooperation protocol signed with the United Nations. The other three ministers were caretaker Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi, caretaker Energy Minister Jibran Bassil and caretaker Telecommunications Minister Charbel Nahhas.
A new document obtained by The Daily Star and a source close to the probe said Bellemare’s office had initially requested access to Lebanon’s fingerprints records in 2009 but later refined his request to 900 records before narrowing it down to just 10 records and 24 birth certificates by late last year.
Despite this, the Interior Ministry was still not responding to his requests.
A source at the Interior Ministry, commenting on Monday’s report, confirmed to The Daily Star that the ministry had not responded to the initial request “because it concerns individuals and it was highly sensitive.”
Bellemare, according to the ministry source, later returned with a second request for “less than a thousand” fingerprint files, which were provided to the prosecutor’s office in Beirut.
Concerning the request for the 10 fingerprints and 24 birth certificates The Daily Star has seen, the ministry source said that they “may refer to sets which for whatever reason needed re-sending.”
“We don’t want to get into anything that could jeopardize the secrecy of the process. We are committed to [safeguard secrecy] in a professional way. That is why we replied [to requests] in writing,” the source said.
The source said that leaks to the media were “harming the whole process and we feel an obligation to rectify what is going on without damaging the secrecy of the process.”
“The minister has been doing his job for two years now. If there is anything that needs to be tackled, we are in regular contact with the office of the prosecutor and we can get through any obstacle that needs to be addressed,” the source said.
According to the document made available to The Daily Star, Bellemare’s requests to the ministry went through Valerio Aquila, the head of the Investigations – Beirut Office in the STL.
The majority of those requests were about interviewing some witnesses in several departments that were affiliated to the ministry. These requests were answered with reservation and the STL was only given copies of some documents and not the originals.
Other requests concerning the Department of Personal Civil Status Affairs at the ministry, which were more complex, especially those in two letters sent by Bellemare’s office on Nov. 6, 2009, and Nov. 11, 2010, were still pending, the sources said.
Regarding the 2009 request for assistance, which pertains to providing Bellemare with an electronic copy of the fingerprints maintained by the Interior Ministry and taken from the application forms presented by the Lebanese citizens in order to obtain identity cards, it was presented at a time when the investigation was still in its initial phase.
“That is why the request was broad and not specific in terms of the required information,” the source close to the investigation explained.
At Baroud’s request, Bellemare’s office limited the information required to 900 forms only. “So, investigators were provided with an electronic list containing the names of 600 individuals whose files were available at the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities. And they were provided with an electronic copy of only three forms as a specimen to study the possibility of using them,” the source said.
But the investigation team found out that the electronic version of the fingerprint stored by the ministry was not suitable to make any comparison.
At an April 14, 2010 meeting, Aquila asked Baroud to enable him to see the original of these application forms but the minister responded that it was impossible since all original forms were packed in boxes deposited randomly in the warehouses of the ministry.
Aquila told Baroud that investigators can handle under his supervision the subject of organizing the archives at the STL’s expenses, “provided for that we would take later on the applications that we need so we can scan them in a modern way that would enable us to invest them and compare them.”
“But the minister refused this offer since it is the duty of the ministry to handle such tasks and he promised to take care personally of the matter but only after the end of the municipal elections,” the source said.
After the elections, Aquila checked personally with the head of Baroud’s office General Pierre Salem and was told that the ministry did not have the qualified human power to do the job as well as the need to find funding for this project through grants which would require the approval of the Cabinet.
Then on Dec. 2, 2010, Bellemare sent a letter to Baroud, stressing on the need to implement this project because of its importance, the source said. Aquila met the minister later that day.
During the meeting, Baroud told Aquila that he has chosen the best offer among several offers for the implementation of the project and that he needs about a month to secure funding, the source said.
Aquila informed Baroud that due to time constraints he only needed 10 fingerprints forms out of the 600 and 24 birth certificates, “especially since the investigation has progressed and we could limit the scope of our request,” the document obtained by The Daily Star said.
When Aquila asked Baroud to authorize investigators to have access to the archive warehouses in the presence of whomever he wanted from his office, the minister asked for some time to give his answer.
After checking with General Salem did not lead to any result, Aquila reminded him that because such a long time has elapsed, the STL was in the process of sending an official reminder in relation to the two requests, which are still outstanding.
After checking with Salem several times, Aquila was told that the documents were ready but that the minister had not signed them due to his intense schedule.
Aquila was later informed that the ministry needed more time to prepare these documents. When Aquila reminded Salem that he previously had told him that the entire documents were ready and required only the minister’s signature on the letter of referral, Salem replied that the documents were not ready yet because they came from “sensitive municipalities.”