Naharnet Newsdesk - Bellemare Seeks Extended Mandate, Says Search for Justice Can't be Rushed

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Bellemare Seeks Extended Mandate, Says Search for Justice Can't be Rushed

U.N. chief investigator Daniel Bellemare has cautioned against expecting early indictments in the case of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri's assassination and urged the Security Council to give his team more time to complete its work.
"While the preparatory steps for the establishment of the special tribunal (that will try suspects in the case) are continuing, I would request this distinguished council to consider extending the mandate of this commission beyond" next June 15, Bellemare told the 15-member body on Tuesday.

"I cannot tell you next year at this time, or in six months, or in three months I will have results," he later told a news conference. "I can tell you though that we'll use every possible effort and we will expedite the process."

South Africa's U.N. ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, the council chair this month, told reporters that members generally welcomed Bellemare's request for a six-month extension as well as the progress made in the probe.

In his first appearance before the council since he took office last January, the Canadian former prosecutor also disclosed that indictments in the case would not be filed immediately after the U.N.-backed tribunal is established.

He said the time gap ideally "should be as short as possible" but he insisted that "the admissible evidence will have to be carefully and objectively considered in light of the applicable prosecution threshold."

"No one can predict or dictate how long this process will take," the head of the U.N. commission investigating Hariri's murder said, stressing that he wanted to "send the clear message that the search for justice cannot be rushed: it must follow its course."

Bellemare was meanwhile asked by Russian U.N. delegate Ilya Rogachev why four Lebanese former security chiefs have been in jail for almost three years in connection with the Hariri killing even though they have not been indicted.

The U.N. chief investigator replied that the decision to detain Jamil al-Sayyed, the former head of the general security department, ex-commander of the Internal Security Forces, Ali Hajj, former head of the presidential guard brigade, Mustafa Hamdan, and ex-commander of the army's intelligence service Raymond Azar had been made "by Lebanese judicial authorities according to Lebanese criminal law."

"It is not for me to second-guess their decision," he noted, adding that he had discussed the case with Lebanon's prosecutor general but could not give details due to the confidential nature of their exchanges.

Kumalo also said council members understood the need to keep information confidential "to ensure the non-politicization" of the probe.

Bellemare also sought to clarify points made in a U.N. report released late last month indicating a "criminal network" of individuals acted together to carry out the Hariri slaying.

"The direction of the investigation has not changed and the commission is still investigating crimes that are politically motivated," he said.

"What is new this time is that we now have the evidence of the existence of such a network and of its links," he added.

Bellemare said his panel's priority was now to gather more evidence about what he called the "Hariri network," its scope, the identity of all its participants, their links with others outside the network and their role in the attacks.

The network or parts of it were also linked to other attacks against anti-Syrian Lebanese figures perpetrated between October 2004 and December 2005.

The U.N. report last month said the enquiry panel had gathered evidence indicating that this network existed before the slaying, conducted surveillance of Hariri before the assassination and was operative on the day it occurred.

"At least part of the Hariri network continued to exist and operate after the assassination," it added.

Bellemare succeeded Belgian Serge Brammertz at the head of the probe to uncover who was behind the death of Hariri and 22 others in a massive explosion on the Beirut seafront on February 14, 2005.

Brammertz' German predecessor Detlev Mehlis had implicated senior officials from Syria, which for three decades was the power broker in Lebanon. But Damascus has strongly denied any connection with Hariri's death.

Responding to French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner's disclosure Tuesday that a key Syrian witness in the Hariri probe disappeared from his Paris suburban home, Bellemare said he was not aware of his whereabouts.

Mohammed Zuhair Siddiq, a Syrian former intelligence officer who had been interviewed by U.N. investigators, "is not in our custody, has never asked to be entered in (our) witness protection program," Bellemare told reporters. "As far as (what) the impact of his disappearance is, this will have to be assessed."

Bellemare is to become the special tribunal's prosecutor once the U.N. probe of the Hariri and related cases is completed.(AFP-AP-Naharnet)

Beirut, 09 Apr 08, 04:52


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