March 25, 2010 - Daily Star - Tribunal investigators question three Hizbullah members

Judicial source denies probe has entered decisive phase
By Michael Bluhm

BEIRUT: Special Tribunal for Lebanon investigators recently questioned three members of Hizbullah about the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, although the investigators had requested to speak with 20 individuals connected to Hizbullah, a senior judicial source told The Daily Star on Wednesday.


At the same time, media reports about the assassination probe having entered a decisive phase are false, the source added.


Investigators interrogated the three Hizbullah members, who were not taken into custody or asked for further rounds of questioning, said the source, who has access to the requests for assistance submitted by the Holland-based tribunal.


Radhia Achouri, spokeswoman for tribunal prosecutor Daniel Bellemare said the court could not confirm the identities of anyone it has questioned. “We have never given any indication as to whom we are meeting and in what capacity,” she said.


Because of the potentially explosive effects in Lebanon of implicating Hizbullah in Hariri’s killing, tribunal detectives will likely not pursue this line of investigation too thoroughly, the source added. “I don’t think they will push hard on this issue,” the source said. “They want to hear new people.”


Ali Fayyad, an MP for Hizbullah’s Loyalty to the Resistance bloc, said on Wednesday that Hizbullah would present its views on the tribunal’s investigation “in due time.”


As for the Hizbullah members who reportedly failed to arrive for questioning, the court can compel the Lebanese state to subpoena Lebanese citizens wanted for questioning by investigators, but the tribunal has not resorted to this process, Achouri said. The tribunal has only submitted requests for assistance, she added.


The apparently extensive interest in Hizbullah would dovetail with the investigators’ theory, as outlined in a March 2006 report by former investigation chief Serge Brammertz, who said he had concluded that a third group acted as mediators between those who ordered Hariri’s assassination and the suicide bomber and his accomplices. “The [investigation] commission believes that there is a layer of perpetrators between those who initially commissioned the crime and the actual perpetrators on the day of the crime, namely those who enabled the crime to occur,” the report said.


Meanwhile, investigators have largely turned their attention away from Syria, the source said. Many here blame Damascus for Hariri’s killing and the plague of political assassinations that has bedeviled Lebanon for years, but Syria has categorically denied any involvement in any political violence. Mass demonstrations after Hariri’s February 14, 2005 assassination forced Syrian troops to withdraw from Lebanon after a 29-year presence, and Damascus endured years of international isolation before its return to prominence.



The judicial source also said he dismissed a report in Wednesday’s edition of pan-Arab daily Ash-Sharq al-Awsat that the investigation had entered a decisive phase and that indictments were soon forthcoming. “I don’t think that is accurate,” the source said. “No major things are occurring.”


Tribunal spokeswoman Achouri said rampant media speculation about the investigation was “not based on accurate information or knowledge,” adding that she strongly discouraged such rumor-mongering.


“It would be helpful if people would abstain or refrain from making estimates and speculation,” she said. “We never give any estimate” about how long the prosecutor will need to submit an indictment request to the court’s pre-trial judge, she added.


Regarding the status of Bellemare’s probe, Achouri said the tribunal remained positive about the chances for finding Hariri’s killers, as tribunal President Antonio Cassese said in his report earlier this month about the tribunal’s first year of activity.


“We have made significant progress that makes us feel optimistic about the outcome of our endeavor,” she said.


This week tribunal investigators also began filming in 3-D the scene of Hariri’s assassination on the Beirut seafront. A massive truck bomb, evidently detonated by a suicide bomber, killed Hariri and 22 others as the former premier’s motorcade drove along the Corniche near the St. George Hotel.


UN Security Council Resolution 1757 in May 2007 established the tribunal, which has its headquarters in a former Dutch intelligence building in a suburb on Holland’s The Hague.


The tribunal, which has a $55.35-million budget in its second year, has mandate to investigate politically motivated assassinations and attempted killings from October 2004 through January 2008.