UN team to ask for more time in Hariri assassination probe

By Leila Hatoum 
October 3, 2005
Daily Star (Lebanon)
Original Source: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=18993

BEIRUT: The UN team investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri will be seeking to extend its term until December 15, according to Lebanese Premier Fouad Siniora. I think [Mehlis] will take all the necessary measures so his mission continues until December 15, which was the period originally assigned to him by the Security Council, Siniora said Sunday. 
The international team's mission had been extended by the UN Security Council in August for 40 days, which will end on October 24. 
German Prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, the head of the UN investigation team, will be presenting his report on the outcome of his investigations to both the UN and the Lebanese government on October 21, as Lebanese Justice Minister Charles Rizk affirmed Sunday. 
According to Rizk, Mehlis has informed me that he will present his report on October 21. 
UN Security Council Resolution 1595 gave the UN team an initial three month period to crack the case, renewable for another three months ending in mid-December. 
Sources close to the Lebanese judiciary told The Daily Star that Mehlis, who left the Beirut early Sunday morning with his senior aides for France, will meet with Beirut MP Saad Hariri, son of the slain premier. 
Mehlis will be heading to Vienna after meeting with Hariri, where he will be writing his report but will be back in Lebanon for few days sometime before October 21, according to the same sources. 
The report which Mehlis will present to the UN and Lebanese government this month was supposed to be his final report on the matter. 
Yet Rizk, who said that Mehlis needs more time to work on the case, didn't see any problem with Mehlis presenting one report this month and a final one in December. 
Rizk called upon the press and the country not to speculate as to the contents of Mehlis' report, which has not been written yet. 
Siniora also warned against speculation about the report, asserting no one on planet earth knows anything about its contents except for the investigating team. 
But according to German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Saturday, the investigations will not directly implicate Syria as the chief suspect. 
The newspaper quoted a source close to the UN in Beirut as saying that the report will not lead to the expected earthquake in relations between Lebanon and Syria. 
Yet the newspaper claimed that the report will name the already arrested four Lebanese security chiefs. The UN team has already questioned Syrian witnesses to determine if they had a hand in the assassination. 
British weekly The Economist reported that Syrian President Bashar Assad had allowed Mehlis to interrogate his younger brother, Maher Assad, the head of the Syrian Presidential Guards, and his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, head of Syria's Intelligence apparatus, in connection with the probe. 
The Economist quoted observers in Damascus as saying that Assad faces three scenarios in coping with the Mehlis report. 
The first scenario stipulates a deal between the Syrian regime, the United States and the UN investigating team, under which Assad would sacrifice his intelligence commanders who served in Lebanon when Hariri was killed, including Brigadier General Rustom Ghazaleh. 
The second scenario envisions Syria opting for a confrontation with its besiegers, which will lead to a speedy collapse of the regime altogether. 
The third scenario was referred to as the besieged scorpion, which stings itself when trapped by fire, or, in other words, the regime will be toppled by an internal coup d'etat. 
Meanwhile, in the course of investigations, Lebanese mobile phone-line company MTC Touch issued a statement refuting allegations by the press that 
its top IT Engineer Rola Abu Daher had been arrested over the weekend. 
MTC completely denies the alleged arrest of Abu Daher, and urges all media to refrain from publishing such information without verifying its validity, it said. 
The press reported on Sunday that Abu Daher had been arrested on charges of hiding information from investigators regarding phone lines suspected of having a link to Hariri's assassination. 
An MTC Touch official told The Daily Star that Abu Daher was interrogated by the investigators and was released the same night on Saturday, without being charged.