Judiciary awaits Eid's response to request for his removal

Daily Star, Judiciary awaits Eid's response to request for his removal, June 30, 2007

BEIRUT: Despite an ever-increasing number of investigations, the Lebanese judiciary is waiting expectantly for the coming response of Investigative Magistrate Elias Eid to a request that he be replaced in the investigation of the February 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a judicial report said on Friday.
The request was filed by a lawyer for the families of four people who died in the attack.
Mohammad Mattar, the lawyer for the heirs of four Hariri bodyguards who died in the February 14, 2005, bombing, filed a request on Wednesday that Eid be replaced. Mattar cited Eid's alleged "intention" to release former security officials Raymond Azar and Jamil Sayyed before the conclusion of the investigation. He also cited Eid's "overly friendly relations" with the lawyers and families of the four officers charged with involvement in the assassination: Sayyed, Azar, Ali al-Hajj and Mustafa Hamdan.
Eid is expected by Monday to issue a response to the request, either by stepping down or by rejecting it, but the final decision on the matter belongs to the Court of Appeals, to which the request was submitted.
"The court is likely to reject the request for several reasons, but mainly because Eid has become very well-informed about the Hariri case and any new judge assigned for follow-up will need about a year to be able to grasp all the details related to the case," well informed judicial sources told The Daily Star.
In related developments, for the second consecutive day Sayyed submitted a memorandum to Eid on Friday asking for a decision from Eid regarding previous requests that Sayyed be released from prison.
The former General Security chief also addressed Mattar in his memorandum, asking how Mattar could conclude that Eid was "overly friendly" toward the detained officers when Eid oversaw their detention for two years "without any witnesses, evidence or proof."