Syria aiding inquiry into Hariri death, reports UN

LEBANON: The report of the UN commission investigating the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri was discussed yesterday by the security council. Commission chairman Serge Brammertz, deputy prosecutor at the International Criminal Court at The Hague, says his team is closer to clarifying the circumstances of the murder and is receiving better co-operation from Damascus than his predecessor did, German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis.

The report said: "The Syrian government has, in particular in the last three months, formally complied with all of the commission's previous requests for assistance." The commission has examined the archives of Syrian military intelligence and reviewed records on the political situation in Lebanon.

Mr Brammertz, who has adopted a non-confrontational approach, met last week with Syrian president Bashar Assad and reached an agreement on the working relationship between the commission and Syria. Mr Assad refused to meet Mr Mehlis, who accused senior Syrian intelligence figures of collaborating with their Lebanese counterparts to eliminate Mr Hariri. Syria rejects his allegations.

The 25-page report described the bombing of Mr Hariri's motorcade on February 14th, 2004, as a complex "terrorist operation" and said the team had reached a new stage in the investigation by making links in the chain of evidence and opening new lines of inquiry.

Priority is being given to the testimony of witnesses who can identify those who provided the overall organisational framework for the crime, which was deemed "very professional".

Special efforts are being made to identify, through DNA testing, the sole victim of 22 who has not been named and who might be a perpetrator, and to trace the movements of the Mitsubishi vehicle used in the bombing, which was seen in Syria shortly before the event.

While it knows how the bombing was carried out, the commission declined to give details, citing concern for the safety of witnesses and the integrity of the comprehensive UN inquiry which is also investigating 14 other bombing attempts in Lebanon.

The lack of detail in the report contrasted with the two documents issued by Mr Mehlis, who speculated that the operation could not have been carried out without the knowledge of senior Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officials and named high-ranking Syrian officers who had been interrogated, including Asef Shawkat, head of military intelligence and the president's brother-in-law.