September 18, 2009 - Naharnet - Muallem: Mehlis, Lehmann Tried to Implicate Syria in Hariri's Murder

The first U.N. team that probed the 2005 murder of ex-PM Rafik Hariri sought to falsely implicate Damascus, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said in a letter to the U.N. Security Council. The letter said former U.N. chief investigator Detlev Mehlis of Germany and his assistant Gerhard Lehmann had sought "to implicate the Syrian Arab Republic at any cost" in the February 14, 2005 bombing which killed Hariri and 22 others in Beirut. The letter, addressed to the presidency of the U.N. Security Council, also urged the world body to investigate the matter. Muallem based his allegations on statements made by one of the four Lebanese generals held for nearly four years without charge over the Hariri case until they were ordered released last April. He said statements made by security services director Jamil Sayyed made it clear that the goal of the team led by Mehlis and Lehmann "had been, right from the start, to implicate the Syrian Arab Republic at any cost in the assassination." "They attempted to induce Sayyed to persuade Syria to identify an official victim who would admit to the crime and subsequently be discovered to have committed suicide or killed in a road accident, whereupon a settlement would be reached with Syria," the letter said. Muallem said Damascus "greatly regrets that misuse of power" by Mehlis and believes that "the secretary general should investigate the matter and the above-mentioned serious events whereby Syria was targeted through a United Nations body." He added that Syria reserves the right "to take legal proceedings" against Mehlis and Lehmann "with regard to the injury they did to Syria by using perjured evidence and departing from the rules and principles of the investigation." The U.N. Hariri probe is currently led by Canadian prosecutor Daniel Bellemare, who ordered Sayyed and the three other pro-Syrian Lebanese generals freed in April. The U.N. Security Council set up the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in 2007 to probe the Hariri murder and a chain of assassinations targeting anti-Syrian figures and military officials between 2005 and 2007. The tribunal, based in The Hague, started its work on March 1, 2009 and currently has no suspects in custody. The Hariri murder was widely blamed on Syria, which withdrew its troops from Lebanon in April 2005 after a 29-year military presence, but Damascus has consistently denied involvement.