2008, December 18 - Naharnet - Extends Hariri Murder Probe Mandate for Two Months

The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Wednesday to extend the mandate of the investigation into the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
The vote came after the chief investigator, Daniel Bellemare of Canada, asked that his commission's mandate be pushed ahead to Feb. 28, from year's end. Discussing a report released early this month on the status of the investigation, Bellemare told the Security Council that his team has uncovered fresh information that may link additional individuals to the network responsible for the February 2005 bombing that killed Hariri. He also said additional links have been found between the assassination and some of the 20 other attacks in which his investigators are providing technical assistance to Lebanon's government. Nobody has been charged in the suicide bombing that killed Hariri and 22 others, although four pro-Syria Lebanese generals have been under arrest for more than three years for alleged involvement. Bellemare said that Lebanese judicial authorities have jurisdiction over the case."No one has the right to intervene in their work," Bellemare said. The first U.N. chief investigator, Detlev Mehlis of Germany, has said the plot's complexity suggested that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services played a role. Bellemare, whose latest report said Syria "has provided generally satisfactory cooperation," said he would not provide any details from the investigation because "lives are at risk." He said he could not predict when the investigation will be completed, but said it will continue once he becomes prosecutor of the international tribunal set up to try suspects in Hariri's assassination. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a report that he expects the tribunal to begin operating March 1 in The Hague, Netherlands. In his briefing to the Council Wednesday, Bellemare said he sought the two-month extension of his mandate "to allow the commission to continue to function until the day the tribunal starts to operate."
He noted that the extension would allow "the momentum of the investigation to be maintained" and would also provide "a period of time in which the commission could gradually transfer its investigative operation from a Beirut base to a base in The Hague." He made it clear that he could not predict when his probe would be wrapped up. "I cannot predict when all the various elements of evidence required to support an indictment will be discovered," Bellemare said.