April 17, 2009 - Daily Star - Bellemare asked to decide whether to extend detention of security chiefs

A judge in the case of the four former security generals detained over alleged involvement in the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri ordered the prosecutor to decide within the next 10 days whether their detention should be extended, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon said in a statement Thursday.
Pre-trial Judge Daniel Fransen, of the Special Tribunal in Lebanon, on Wednesday ordered prosecutor Daniel Bellemare to clarify by April 27 whether or not he requests the continual detention of the suspects in the 2005 assasination.
This time limit was set by the pre-trial judge to guarantee a fair trial, after weighing this up with the consideration of the difficult details of the case, the statement said. The statement also said that "it is a fundamental right enshrined in all human rights instruments that any individual arrested or detained be brought promptly before a judge to rule on his or her detention status."
The pre-trial judge's statement added, however, that the Hariri case raised difficult issues of terrorism, and that the judicial record related to it was particularly complex and voluminous. Pursuant with the pre-trial judge's order on March 27, 2009, the Lebanese authorities referred a copy of Lebanon's judicial records regarding the Hariri case to the general prosecutor on April 10, 2009.
On Thursday, Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar said no official decision has been made by the Tribunal on the release of the four former security chiefs.
But As-Safir newspaper reported Thursday that one of the lawyers said the decision to release the four suspects "has already been taken," adding that the generals' families had been informed. "Head of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon's defense office did not give any statements to the press regarding the four generals," Najjar told Future News TV. -