May 28, 2009 - Daily Star - No Tribunal officials talked to Der Spiegel journalist

By Michael Bluhm

No one from the Special Tribunal for Lebanon talked with the Der Spiegel journalist who published a story on Saturday saying investigators believed Hizbullah was behind the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a tribunal spokeswoman said on Wednesday.The court received only one brief e-mail - not written by journalist Erich Follath - asking tribunal prosecutor Daniel Bellemare to confirm he was zeroing in on Hizbullah and to confirm his interest in Hizbullah operatives later named in the German magazine's article, said Bellemare's spokeswoman Radhia Achouri. The tribunal's reply did not provide any information regarding the course of the investigation, she added."That was the only contact as far as the Office of the Prosecutor is concerned, and I can say the same for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in general," Achouri told The Daily Star. "We are not the ones who are going to be making the case through the media. When we want to say something, we will say it."
The tribunal will not comment about the veracity of Saturday's story or any other media report about the investigation, she added. "This investigation must remain confidential," she said. "We do not want to release any information that might tip off people we don't want to tip off. It is still a murder investigation, and we do not want to tip off the perpetrators. We did not say what it is that we are after.
"It's just another article. It's not the first; it's not the last. We do not get upset." Follath said he had seen originals of the documents showing that detectives had identified Hizbullah members as the culprits in the February 2005 killing that sparked a wave of mass protests leading to the exit of Syrian troops from Lebanon after a 29-year presence, said an article in pan-Arab newspaper Ash-Sharq al-Awsat on Wednesday. Many in Lebanon's March 14 political alliance have blamed Syria for Hariri's assassination and other political killings, but Damascus has denied all accusations. Der Spiegel's accusation of Hizbullah has provoked a mostly muted response from March 14 politicians. Tribunal spokeswoman Achouri also said a story in Lebanese newspaper As-Safir was inaccurate in reporting that Follath had copied his story from an article on the Syrian opposition Web site Al-Haqiqa. Al-Haqiqa's article said the investigation centered on Islamist groups such as Fatah al-Islam and speculated that the West would cut a deal with Syria to exculpate President Bashar Assad's regime, Achouri added. Meanwhile, Bellemare's inquiry continues, led by chief of investigations Nick Kaldas, an Australian policeman born in Egypt who served for eight months in 2004 in Iraq as the US-led coalition's deputy chief adviser to Iraqi police. Kaldas, who moved to Australia from Egypt when he was 12, left his position as deputy police commissioner of Australia's New South Wales province to join Bellemare's team. Another high-ranking tribunal official - registrar Robin Vincent - will be staying on for another month because the UN has yet to find his successor, Vincent said. Vincent had announced he was resigning his post at the end of April, but he has had to postpone that to the end of May and now to the end of June because the UN had not chosen his replacement, he added. The posting for his position has closed, and the UN Office of Legal Affairs will conduct the hiring process, he said. Contrary to some press reports, Vincent said he was leaving for professional reasons, although he would not give any details. Vincent, 65, said he had received job offers since announcing his resignation but was not leaving for another position. "I don't have anything else in mind. I don't have anything else in place," he said. "You come to a point where you think the tribunal will proceed much quicker or better" without him, added Vincent, who joined the nascent tribunal in August 2007 in New York. The tribunal opened its doors in a suburb of Holland's The Hague on March 1. Vincent said reports were false that he had been fired or had engaged in shouting matches with tribunal colleagues, and he called the staff at the court "the best team I've ever had the privilege of working with." Aside from the investigation, the tribunal is concentrating on raising funds for its 2010 estimated budget of $65 million, Vincent said. Lebanon must pay 49 percent of the court's expenses, although spending next year - as well as the $65 million budgeted for 2011 - could change markedly depending on the progress made by Bellemare, Vincent added. Of the remaining more than $30 million slated for 2010, the tribunal has received pledges for about $10 million, led by a US promise of about $6 million, Vincent said. Such a shortfall at this point in the calendar year is not unusual for similar international tribunals, and the court will focus fundraising efforts on the major contributors to the tribunal's first-year budget: the US, UK, France and Germany, he added. "One likes to think that they will, obviously, repeat their commitments next year," he said.