Naharnet - Hariri Murder Trial to Inflame Mideast Tensions Further, 28 March 2008
The British newspapers, The Guardian, has said that the trial of suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri is certainly to inflame Middle East tensions further. The controversy over the tribunal will also cast a long shadow over the Arab summit in Syria this weekend, The Guardian said. It said the case to be heard at the court in Leichendamm is unprecedented: the result of the Security Council bypassing Lebanon's political deadlock to seek the truth behind Hariri's killing and 22 others in the massive car bombing on Feb. 14, 2005.Stung by the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon after the "Cedar Revolution" triggered by Hariri's killing, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad sees a not-so-hidden U.S.-led agenda to isolate him, The Guardian wrote. "We have some concerns about the politics of the tribunal," it quoted a Syrian official as saying, "but we are cooperating fully."Daniel Bellemare, a Canadian former deputy attorney general, is expected to wrap up his work by the end of the year, further adding to the nervousness in Damascus, The Guardian said. It said his big moment will come when he issues indictments. "That's when the shit will really hit the fan," The Guardian quoted one U.N. source as saying.It is also at that point, the British daily went on to say, that the Hariri tribunal may face what has been called the "Lockerbie scenario," mirroring the situation when two Libyan intelligence officers were indicted for the 1988 bombing. Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi refused to surrender them for trial and only did so after years of U.N. sanctions and a discreet deal spelling out that the trial was of two individuals - not the regime they worked for.The Guardian said Lebanon is more likely than Syria to hand over any suspects. "It's a puzzle," observed Augustus Norton, a Middle East expert at Boston University. "I can't see the Syrians agreeing to give anyone up for trial - or at least anyone senior." Officials could claim immunity, though any who do "are unlikely to be successful in making a claim that assassination can be regarded as an official act," the former Foreign Office legal adviser Elizabeth Wilmshurst told The Guardian.Handily, there is a provision for trial in absentia, the daily said. It said special arrangements are being made to protect any witnesses who come to Leichendamm."There is huge concern bordering on panic in Damascus," Paul Salem, head of the Carnegie Foundation's office in Beirut, told The Guardian. "There is a sense that Syria is drifting into a very serious problem without having thought through how to deal with it."The newspaper said observers predict the tribunal may launch proceedings in late summer or autumn and adjourn until after the U.S. presidential election - the source, as ever, of hope for change in the Middle East. "It's very hard to predict what will happen," a U.N. official told The Guardian. "It depends who is indicted and at what level. Maybe the Syrians are waiting for the first indictment, or a new American president. They tried to stop the tribunal but misjudged. I'm not sure that they have fully internalized it - but they have lost."
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