Court of Appeals rejected Eid replacement

Daily Star, Court of Appeals rejected Eid replacement, August 02, 2007


BEIRUT: The Court of Appeals rejected a request submitted to it in early June to replace investigating magistrate Elias Eid, head of the Lebanese investigation into the February 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a judicial report said on Wednesday.

Mohammad Mattar, the lawyer for the heirs of four Hariri bodyguards who died in the February 14, 2005 bombing, filed a request in June 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 former security officials charged with involvement in the assassination: Sayyed, Azar, Ali al-Hajj and Mustafa Hamdan.

The Court of Appeals said that limiting the authority of an investigative magistrate did not "fall within the responsibilities of the Court of Appeals."

The An-Nahar newspaper reported that the judiciary had acquired a document showing "some forms of common interests between the judge and the suspect." The document, reportedly delivered to judicial authorities by General Security head General Wafiq Jezzini, showed that Eid had benefited in 2003 from gas coupons Sayyed used to distribute when Sayyed was in his previous post.