April 28, 2009 - Daily Star - Tribunal judge to unveil decision on four generals Wednesday

'It is up to judge Fransen to take the appropriate decision'

Pre-trial judge of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon Daniel Fransen will announce his decision on the fate of the four detained generals on April 29, Lebanese televisions quoted officials from the tribunal as saying on Monday. Officials said Fransen would announce his decision at 3 p.m. Beirut time.
The court's general prosecutor Daniel Bellemare handed his decision on the fate of the generals to the pre-trial judge.
Fransen had issued a ruling asking Bellemare to either justify the need to keep the prisoners in custody or to order their release by April 27.
The four generals, Jamil Sayyed of General Security, Ali al-Hajj of the Internal Security Forces, Raymond Azar of Military Intelligence and Mustafa Hamdan of the Presidential Guards have all been detained since 2005 for alleged involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar said following talks with Premier Fouad Siniora on Monday at the Grand Serail that the release of the generals "does not imply their innocence and keeping them in prison doesn't mean they were involved in former Prime Minister Hariri's killing."
"It is up to Judge Fransen to take the appropriate decision after studying the file," Najjar told reporters.
Al-Jadeed television station reported Monday that the Lebanese authorities will be informed about Fransen's final say concerning the four former security chiefs through Lebanon's State Prosecutor Saeed Mirza.
On Saturday, the four former generals held unmonitored talks with their lawyers at Lebanon's biggest jail, the Roumieh Prison.
The four generals will also be allowed to meet their defense lawyers for two hours every day, in line with an order by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
The men have never been officially charged but were brought into custody on suspicion of terrorism, murder and attempted murder - accusations that their lawyers insist are based on the false testimony of a witness later discredited by investigators.
Media reports last week quoted an unidentified Arab diplomat in Dubai as claiming Mohammad Zuhair Siddiq had been arrested in the emirate and that Syria had requested his extradition. Later reports claimed Siddiq was transferred to police in Abu Dhabi by their counterparts in Sharjah, and that police were considering whether to transfer him to the Syrian authorities if they made an extradition request.
Purportedly a former Syrian intelligence agent, Siddiq was arrested in a Paris suburb in October 2005 under an international arrest warrant requested by a Lebanese prosecutor. He was put under house arrest after the French authorities refused a request to extradite him to Lebanon, but went missing in March 2008.
In 2006, Siddiq alleged Syrian President Bashar Assad and his then-Lebanese counterpart Emile Lahoud had ordered Hariri's murder, in which 22 others also died. The UN tribunal initially considered Siddiq a key witness in their investigation, but made him a suspect after his testimonies were discredited.