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| Syrian witness ready to meet rights groups-lawyer | |||
| 2005-12-14 | |||
 A Syrian witness in a U.N. probe into the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri is ready to meet rights groups to show that he was not coerced to recant his testimony, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
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| UN wants to question more Syrians in Hariri probe | ||||||
| 2005-12-11 | ||||||
 A U.N. inquiry into the murder of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri will summon more Syrian witnesses in the next few days, its chief investigator Detlev Mehlis was quoted on Saturday as saying. In an interview published in Lebanon's al-Mustaqbal newspaper, which was owned by the murdered ex-premier, Mehlis said he would ask Syria in the next few days if U.N. investigators could question new Syrian witnesses in Vienna, but did not identify them.
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| Hariri murder probe stumbles into a maze of melodrama | ||
| 2005-12-07 | ||
 It reads like the cast of a B-movie: part fantasy, part thriller. A hooded witness, shaking off his disguise, recants his evidence. An-other character is introduced as a fanatical assassin but ends up a likely decoy. Yet another may be innocent, tangled in a web of intrigue. The melodrama of the UN investigation into the killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri is intensifying.The head of the investigation, the German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, says he will not continue much beyond the end of his mandate that runs out on December 15, despite pleas from Lebanon and members of the UN Security Council. That has cast doubt on the future of a high-stakes probe, though UN officials say a new chief would be named quickly. This week, after months of wrangling, the UN team started questioning five Syrians, including intelligence officers, in Austria's capital, Vienna. But the well-known heads of security branches are only part of the story. The investigators seek to talk to all the people mentioned in their interim report, six weeks ago, implicating a range of Syrians. They include a possible witness now known to be in a Syrian jail, only one of many who do not seem to be available for questioning or who have disappeared. The plot laid out in the interim report implicated both Lebanon's and Syria's security agencies, naming some very senior members of Syria's governing elite including Assef Shawkat, President Assad's brother-in-law, who also heads military intelligence, and Maher Assad, the president's brother. Another witness who investigators may want to talk to again is a self-professed former Syrian intelligence agent in Lebanon, Hosam Taher Hosam, who last week suddenly turned up in Damascus where the authorities paraded him before the world media to undermine the credibility of the UN investigation. Mr Hosam stated that he had given false evidence, at times hooded to avoid detection, after having been threatened by Lebanese officials and after Mr Hariri's son, Saad Hariri, as well as Lebanon's interior ministry, had tried to bribe him. Mr Mehlis was not amused by the appearance. The whole affair smacked of the kind of "propaganda" he had witnessed in the Soviet-dominated former East Germany, he told Lebanese media. But he acknowledged Mr Hosam had been a witness. None of this compares to the fog around the original mystery man: Ahmad Abu Adass, a devout young Palestinian living in Beirut who in a pre-recorded video message claimed that he carried out the suicide attack that killed Mr Hariri on February 14 for an unknown fundamentalist Islamic group. The investigation's interim report found no evidence that Mr Abu Adass drove the truck. He may have been used as a decoy by Lebanese and Syrian intelligence. Mr Adass disappeared mysteriously a month before the assassination, possibly in Syria. Investigators may also consider the possibility he ended up in a recently discovered mass grave near the former HQ of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon.
Others say he frequented a Salafi mosque - a fundamentalist, often harshly anti-western strain of Islam. Mr Abu Adass may have wanted to fight in Iraq. That could be how he came into contact with Syrian intelligence, said by experts in Beirut to have been running the jihadi-smuggling network from Lebanon to Iraq, through Syria. Ziad Ramadan could shed light on Mr Adass's intentions. A young Syrian and one of his best friends, he lived in Lebanon until this year. The interim UN report said investigators wanted to question Mr Ramadan but could not find him. It is now clear he is in jail in Syria.
Lebanon's government last week asked for a six-month extension of the UN investigation. Mr Mehlis may have sufficient evidence to name his Syrian suspects after the Vienna interrogations or in his December 15 report to the UN Security Council, marking a breakthrough. If not, it may well be left to another chief investigator to navigate the maze of intrigue that Hariri's killers have constructed. | ||
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| Saad Hariri accuses Syria of trying to sway UN probe | |||||
| 2005-12-06 | |||||
 DUBAI - The son of slain Lebanese premier Rafik Al Hariri accused Syria on Monday of trying to influence a UN probe into the murder, saying he never met a Syrian man who claimed to have been bribed to testify against Damascus.
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| Mehlis Slams Syria for âPropagandaâ |
| 2005-12-02 |
| Chief UN investigator Detlev Mehlis accused Damascus of using a Syrian witness in the inquiry into the killing of a former Lebanese prime minister as a Communist-like propaganda tool. German prosecutor Mehlis, quoted by a number of Lebanese and Arabs newspapers yesterday, said his investigation had not been undermined by witness Hosam Taher Hosam, who recanted his testimony. Hosam appeared on Syrian television this week to accuse Lebanese officials of an elaborate scheme of threats, bribery and torture to induce him to testify falsely against Syria and said the inquiryâs initial findings rested largely on his lies. âIâm used to this kind of propaganda,â Mehlis was quoted by Beirutâs as-Safir daily as saying. âIâve spent 40 years in Germany and we used to see such things in former eastern European countries.â Mehlisâ interim report in October into the Feb. 14 killing of Rafik Al-Hariri cast suspicion on senior Syrian officials and suggested the assassination was planned by top security officials in Damascus and their Lebanese allies. Syria has denied the accusations and called the Mehlis report politically motivated, saying Hosamâs testimony was the main source implicating Syrians. âThere is no main witness. There is a witness who might give information to the (investigation) commission. What Hosam said in Syria is different to what he told us,â Mehlis said. He said his team would ask to question Hosam again because he was trying to hamper the investigation. Other newspapers gave a similar account of Mehlisâ briefing and an-Nahar newspaper said he expressed his astonishment as to how a Syrian committee also investigating Haririâs death had showed Hosam on television before questioning him. A Syrian official did not wish to comment on Mehlisâ remarks but said Damascus has conveyed to him the outcome of an investigation with Hosam in Damascus. âContrary to what has been published, Hosam was questioned in Syria and the minutes of the questioning were sent to Mr. Mehlis on Tuesday,â the official told Reuters. The German was also quoted as saying he might seek to question more Syrian officials after his team quiz five of them in Vienna next week, denying there was a deal with Damascus over whom he could summon. The city was a compromise after Syria balked at Mehlisâ request to question them in Lebanon. âEveryone we ask to question, we will question... Cooperation is either total or there is no cooperation,â he said. âIf the investigations result in a request for arrests, the commission would recommend their arrests and the Syrian authorities would have to do it.â His October report slammed Syria for failing to cooperate with the investigation. The UN Security Council, which authorized the probe, subsequently warned Syria to cooperate or face the prospect of further action. Mehlis is scheduled to submit his final report on Dec. 15. |
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| Mehlis says Hariri probe unharmed by Syria witness |
| 2005-12-01 |
| BEIRUT, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis was quoted on Thursday as saying his investigation into the killing of a former Lebanese prime minister had not been undermined by a Syrian witness who recanted his testimony. German prosecutor Mehlis, quoted by a number of Lebanese and Arab newspapers, accused Syrian authorities of using the witness, Hosam Taher Hosam, as a Communist-like propaganda tool. Hosam appeared on Syrian television this week to accuse Lebanese officials of an elaborate scheme of threats, bribery and torture to induce him to testify falsely against Syria and said the inquiry's initial findings rested largely on his lies. "I'm used to this kind of propaganda," Mehlis was quoted by Beirut's as-Safir daily as saying. "I've spent 40 years in Germany and we used to see such things in former eastern European countries." Mehlis' interim report in October into the Feb. 14 killing of Rafik al-Hariri cast suspicion on senior Syrian officials and suggested the assassination was planned by top security officials in Damascus and their Lebanese allies. Syria has denied the accusations and called the Mehlis report politically motivated, saying Hosam's testimony was the main source implicating Syrians. "There is no main witness. There is a witness who might give information to the (investigation) commission. What Hosam said in Syria is different to what he told us," Mehlis said. He said his team would ask to question Hosam again because he was trying to hamper the investigation. Other newspapers gave a similar account of Mehlis' briefing. The German was also quoted as saying he might seek to question more Syrian officials after his team quiz five of them in Vienna next week, denying there was a deal with Damascus over whom he could summon. The city was a compromise after Syria balked at Mehlis' request to question them in Lebanon. "Everyone we ask to question, we will question... Cooperation is either total or there is no cooperation," he said. "If the investigations result in a request for arrests, the commission would recommend their arrests and the Syrian authorities would have to do it." His October report slammed Syria for failing to cooperate with the investigation. The U.N. Security Council, which authorised the probe, subsequently warned Syria to cooperate or face the prospect of further action. Mehlis is scheduled to submit his final report on Dec. 15. Ibrahim Gambari, the U.N. undersecretary-general for political affairs, said on Wednesday he expected the investigation to continue but that Mehlis may hand over the work to someone else. |
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| Syrian witness says Hariri's son forced him to lie | |||
| 2005-11-28 | |||
DAMASCUS (Reuters) - A man has appeared on Syrian state television saying Lebanese officials, including the son of Rafik al-Hariri, had forced him to testify falsely to a U.N. inquiry into the former Lebanese prime minister's assassination.
Hosam, who said he belonged to Syria's Kurdish minority, said followers of Hariri and other anti-Syrian officials had detained him for a while in Lebanon and had wanted him to go to Vienna to confront the Syrians to be questioned by Mehlis. "It is all a ploy," Hosam said. "They were after Syria." He said Hariri had told him he was convinced Syria was behind the truck bomb that killed his father, but needed Hosam's testimony to prove it. Syria kept a tight grip on its small neighbor Lebanon for nearly three decades until a Lebanese and international outcry over Hariri's death forced it to withdraw its troops in April. Hosam also accused Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt and Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh of arranging for other witnesses to testify falsely to Mehlis. Hosam said his captors had wanted him to implicate Maher al-Assad, a brother of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and his brother-in-law, Major General Asef Shawkat, the head of military intelligence. Hosam said he had been tortured, injected with drugs and offered $1.3 million by Lebanese Interior Minister Hassan al-Sabaa to tell the investigators he had seen the truck used in Hariri's killing in a Syrian-controlled military facility. Hosam said he believed Mehlis was unaware of the alleged scheme. "I felt he had no relation to anything or knew anything," he said. Mehlis has interviewed more than 500 people in connection with Hariri's killing, diplomatic sources say. His interim report in October did not name Hosam.
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