July 18, 2009 - Daily Star - Hariri court calls for improved relationship with the media

By Patrick Galey and Carol Rizk

BEIRUT: The prosecutor in the United Nations-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) said on Friday that it required a better relationship with the media in order to continue in its probe into the death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Addressing reporters at the Seat of the Lebanese Journalists' Association, Radhia Ashouri, spokesperson for Prosecutor Daniel Bellemare, said the prosecutor's office was "developing specific projects to communicate with the public and media better."
She called for greater public participation in the tribunal, highlighting a new STL website - launched last month - as one possible avenue of witness engagement. "As far as we are concerned, as the office of the prosecutor, we want to reach out as much as possible," she said.
However, Ashouri sounded a note of caution, warning that any leaked reports could stand in the way of the tribunal's passage to justice.
"No information will be leaked to the media or to politicians or any other institution because the investigation is still confidential and the culprits are still free. Any information made public can benefit the criminals," she added.
She said the probe was moving forward, but stressed that the prosecution would not be hurried into any decision.
Ashouri vowed that Bellemare would "give whatever the evidence lets him [give] and leave no stone unturned" in the pursuit of bringing Hariri's killers to justice.
The STL was set up to try those allegedly responsible for the assassination of billionaire and five-time former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was killed along with 22 others by a massive car bomb in the Beirut neighborhood of Ain al-Mreisseh on February 14, 2005. It has been plagued by controversy since its inception in 2007.
Ashouri stressed that the tribunal had been necessarily slow in its efforts to conduct an "entirely evidence-based" investigation. Bellemare could "dictate the pace of the investigation but he cannot dictate the results," Ashouri said.
"Behind every inch of progress there is a mile of work," she quoted Bellemare as saying. "I did not come out of retirement to fail."
Ashouri continued: "All those who worked with the prosecutor general were well aware of the difficulties of this task but we were determined to overcome these difficulties due to the importance of our mission."
She reiterated that the prosecution was not seeking to speak further with Mohammad Zuhair Siddiq, the former Syrian intelligence officer who alleged that Syrian President Bashar Assad and his then-Lebanese counterpart Emile Lahoud ordered Hariri's killing.
Siddiq was initially treated as a witness by the tribunal but became a suspect after his testimonies were discredited.
"The evidence he provided is not acceptable and we are not interested in him," said Ashouri.
Earlier this year the STL ordered the release of four Lebanese generals held without charge since 2005 on suspicion of involvement in Hariri's assassination. Ashouri indicated that the prosecution saw their release as legitimate and routine.
"The investigation was never restricted to the case of the four generals. The legal status of the four generals, according to us, is relatively special. We cannot condemn them or consider them suspects and this is why we had no problem setting them free. The matter of their release is a matter of procedure," she said.
Last month, German publication Der Speigel alleged that Hizbullah had plotted and executed Hariri's murder.
While Hizbullah at the time dismissed the accusations as "nothing but police-like fabrications," Ashouri refused to be drawn on the subject.
"We don't comment on [this] and other media reports and we will not comment on operational aspects of the investigation," she said.
Hariri's murder has been widely blamed on Damascus and prompted the pullout of Syrian troops from Lebanon after a presence of nearly30 years.