Sayyed demands release, says UN report 'denies' he played role in Hariri killing

Daily Star - Sayyed demands release, says UN report 'denies' he played role in Hariri killing, December 01, 2007

The jailed former head of General Security, Jamil Sayyed, detained for alleged role in the 2005 assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri, demanded on Friday that he be "immediately released since the international probe committee has repeatedly denied my involvement in the case." In a statement issued through his media office, Sayyed said that the UN probe "has - six times - officially declared that the arrest of the four former security generals falls strictly within the responsibilities of the Lebanese judiciary and that the committee was not to be held responsible for it." The international probe committee into the Hariri assassination issued its most recent report on Wednesday. Hariri and 22 others died in February 2005 in a Beirut car bomb that early UN findings linked to Syrian and Lebanese security officials. Syria has denied involvement but the public outcry forced it to withdraw its troops from Lebanon. Lebanon's four former security chiefs - generals Raymond Azar of Army Intelligence, Ali Hajj of the Internal Security Forces, Mustafa Hamdan of the Presidential Guard and Sayyed - have been detained since August 2005 for alleged involvement in the case. "Item 81 of the latest report by the international probe commission clearly highlights the fact that it [the commission] has supplied the Lebanese judiciary with enough information for it to be able to operate accordingly and independently," Sayyed's statement said. Sayyed lashed out at State Prosecutor Saeed Mirza, saying he was to be held responsible "for keeping me detained." "Mirza is working according to an obscure political agenda and totally ignores concrete findings into the case," he said. In his latest report on the UN investigative commission issued on Wednesday, the head of the probe Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz warned that those who carried out the attack still have the ability to strike again. Brammertz said he had made progress on the Hariri investigation in recent months and was able to draw preliminary conclusions about important aspects and to identify more people involved. The report was Brammertz's last one to the Security Council before his mandate expires at the end of this year, when he will be replaced by Canadian prosecutor Daniel Bellemare. The commission is due to hand over its findings to a special tribunal that is being established in the Netherlands. Starting January 1, Brammertz will take over as prosecutor of the Hague-based international tribunal for former Yugoslavia.