Posted on 10/21/2005 9:25:50 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The names of Syrian President Bashar Assad's brother and brother-in-law and other top Syrians were edited out of the final report of a U.N. investigation as helping to plot the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, U.N. diplomats said Friday.
Germany prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, who led the U.N. probe, told a hastily called news conference that he decided to delete the names when he learned Thursday morning the report would be made public because the Syrians had only been identified by a witness interviewed by his investigators.
Since their alleged involvement had not been corroborated, "it could give the wrong impression" of guilt and the presumption of innocence must remain, he said.
The final report implicated top Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officials in Hariri's assassination, findings that drew the first official link between Damascus and the slaying of the popular opposition leader. It accused Syria of not cooperating with the investigation and accused Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa of having lied in a letter sent to Mehlis' commission, though it didn't give details.
The deleted references to the alleged involvement of Assad's younger brother, Maher Assad, the overall Syrian security chief, and his brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, the military intelligence chief, as well as other members of the government's inner circle draw the net closer to the president.
Syria's U.N. Ambassador Fayssal Mekdad called the investigation "a very political analysis" and vehemently said accusations it wasn't cooperating were "absolutely incorrect and far away from the reality."
"I would like to confirm once again that Syria believes, strongly believes, that it is innocent and the committee has to look somewhere else to find those who committed this heinous crime," Mekdad told Associated Press Television News.
The exhaustive report into the Feb. 14 car bomb that killed Hariri and 20 others, issued to the U.N. Security Council late Thursday, will almost certainly stoke fears of violence and inflame tensions in the region.
The council is likely to use it to put new pressure on Syria to ease its continued influence on Lebanon.
U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, who met with Mehlis Friday morning, said the Security Council should demand cooperation from Syria so the investigation can be completed.
Bolton called the report a "very hard-hitting" and "historic document," saying it contains "very dramatic news about the extent of Syrian involvement, and involvement by top officials in the Lebanese government in this assassination."
Asked about possible sanctions against Syria, Bolton said, "I don't think there's any doubt that this is going to require a strong follow up from the council. We're considering still a range of options."
The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to discuss the report Tuesday. Late next week, it will also receive a report from Terje Roed-Larsen, the U.N. special envoy on Lebanon-Syria, about disarming Lebanese militias.
While the final report stopped short of fingering Assad or his inner circle, it accused Syria of failing to cooperate and said the plot to kill Hariri must have had the blessing of Syrian security officials.
The decision to assassinate Hariri "could not have been taken without the approval of top-ranked Syrian security officials and could not have been further organized without the collusion of their counterparts in the Lebanese security services," the report said.
The final report cited a Syrian witness living in Lebanon as saying that Lebanese and Syrian officials had decided to assassinate Hariri about two weeks after the U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution. It demanded the withdrawal of Syrian troops and intelligence operations from Lebanon and recounted a number of high-level meetings between unnamed high-level Syrian and Lebanese officials.
The earlier version says two weeks after the adoption of the resolution, "Maher Assad, Assef Shawkat, Hassan Khalil, Bahjat Suleiman and Jamil Al-Sayyed decided to assassinate Rafik Hariri." Khalil is Shawkat's predecessor as chief of military intelligence, Suleiman was the head of internal security and was removed about two months ago, and Sayyed is chief of the General Security Department.
The final report includes a single reference to Shawkat. According to one witness, Shawkat forced a man to tape a claim of responsibility for Hariri's killing 15 days before it occurred.
That tape was aired on the al-Jazeera satellite channel the day of the blast but was discredited by Mehlis' investigators as an apparent attempt to divert attention from the real perpetrators. The man who made the tape, a Palestinian named Abu Adass, left his home Jan. 16 and was likely taken to Syria, where he disappeared.
The final report cited witness testimony that strongly implicates several officials as conspiring to assassinate Hariri. Lebanon has already arrested four of them, all Lebanese generals close to Syria.
The report also raised questions about Lebanon's pro-Syrian president, Emile Lahoud, who received a phone call minutes before the blast from the brother of a prominent member of a pro-Syrian group, who also called one of the four arrested generals, Raymond Azar.
Those leads and many others still must be followed up and Mehlis asked for more time to work with Lebanese investigators.
"If the investigation is to be completed, it is essential that the government of Syria fully cooperate with the investigating authorities, including by allowing interviews to be held outside Syria and for interviewees not to be accompanied by Syrian officials," Mehlis said.
In a letter accompanying the report, Annan said he would extend Mehlis' investigation until Dec. 15.
There wasn't a single reference in the report to Syria's Interior Minister Ghazi Kenaan, who had been questioned by Mehlis' team. Syria said he committed suicide last week, but many Lebanese have called the circumstances suspicious.
Hariri's death led to demonstrations against Syria and magnified the international pressure on Damascus to withdraw its troops, which it eventually did. The Security Council approved a probe into Hariri's assassination on April 8.
In meticulous detail, the report documents how Hariri's movements and phone conversations had been monitored for months. It casts suspicion on a decision by one of the four arrested Lebanese generals, Ali Hajj, to reduce Hariri's state security detail from 40 to eight in November, 2004.
Mehlis draws attention to Sheik Ahmed Abdel-Al, a prominent figure in the pro-Syrian Al-Ahbash Sunni Muslim Orthodox group, whom he called a "a key figure in an ongoing investigation." Abdel-Al had extensive contacts with top Lebanese security officials before and after the blast, and tried to hide information from investigators.
It was his brother who called Lahoud just before the blast.
One witness said that Brig. Gen. Mustafa Hamdan, another of the four generals under arrest, ended an October, 2004 conversation by saying: "We are going to send him on a trip, bye, bye Hariri."
fyi
I look forward to the European Left demanding the arrest and trial of these thugs. Not.
Not in our lifetime.
told a hastily called news conference that he decided to delete the names when he learned Thursday morning the report would be made public because the Syrians had only been identified by a witness interviewed by his investigators.
Spineless UN terrorism appeasers!!! What a friggin joke.
Thank god, the names got released anyway. It's only backing up what we already knew.
ping
Report of the International Independent Investigation Commission ~~ The assassination of Mr Hariri
I was waiting for that puppy to pop up.
Thanks!
Brother-in-law of Syrian leader implicated (UN / Hariri Assassination Probe) ^
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1506734/posts
crap...before and after. I watched closely the press conference of Mehlis. The final conclusion (Syria) cannot be possibly avoided, but Mr. Mehlis did a very weak homework.
Thanks for the ping. From Lebanon:
Mehlis' report says top Syrian security officials approved Hariri's murder
By Mayssam Zaaroura, Majdoline Hatoum and Leila Hatoum
Daily Star staff
Friday, October 21, 2005
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=19493
"Saad said: 'I discussed with my father, the late Rafik Hariri, the extension of President Lahoud's term. He told me that President Bashar Assad threatened him telling him: 'This is what I want. If you think that President Chirac and you are going to run Lebanon, you are mistaken. It is not going to happen. President Lahoud is me. Whatever I tell him, he follows suit. This extension is to happen or else I will break Lebanon over your head and Walid Jumblat's. (…) So, you either do as you are told or we will get you and your family wherever you are.'"
Nine lives I guess...
"Well...crap...Full report after the edit job I guess here:"
Got it. Thanks. Hopefully big John Bolton shall no allow things to fall between the cracks. Assad, his brother, and brother in law are not going to be able to get out of this one. Deals may be going down between the DoS and the Syrian government, as how Assad's skin can be saved if he jumps on the bandwagon and stops the terrorist organizaton actvities in his country. If we start to hear about more Iraqi Ba'athist being handed over to the Iraqi, it will be apparent deals are going down.
Syria Blamed in Death of Lebanese Leader Hariri ~~ SS Rice says Syria must be held accountable
Reports, Sanctions, Condemnations, Embargos, Censors, Criticisms, Diplomacy, Treaties, Agreements, Road Maps to Peace, Compromise, Limited/Constrained Warfare, Surrender, etc, etc, etc.........are USELESS when dealing with terrorists or any evil entity..
They will not achieve the needed change in behavior in these bastards,
They will not protect you from attack from these bastards.
However -- killing them in VERY LARGE NUMBERS often achieves the necessary behavior modification desired...
This option works ONLY when you are the strongest power on the planet ----- I hope we don't wait long enough to piss that one advantage away...
Semper Fi
Hell's comin' to breakfast, sooner or later...
Perhaps he lives by the rule, "never take a knife to a gunfight." ;') Or, "the best defense is a good offense". If he were assassinated, I doubt that the Druze would take that lying down.
Names omitted from report
BY MOHAMAD BAZZI
MIDDLE EAST CORRESPONDENT
October 22, 2005
BEIRUT, Lebanon - The UN probe into Rafik Hariri's assassination raised eyebrows Friday - not just for what it said, but what it left unsaid.
At the last minute, United Nations officials deleted key information contained in the accusation: one witness' testimony that Syrian President Bashar Assad's brother and brother-in-law were among the main plotters of Hariri's killing.
Instead of naming names, the final version of the report referred to the alleged plotters in general terms - as "senior Lebanese and Syrian officials." However, an earlier version had said the witness identified those officials, including Maher Assad, the president's younger brother, and Assef Shawkat, the president's brother-in-law and head of Syrian military intelligence.
The final report would have been more devastating to the Syrian regime if two members of the president's family were named in it as suspected plotters. The deleted names came to light after reporters checked previous versions of the Microsoft Word document that contained UN investigator Detlev Mehlis' report, which was e-mailed to the media Thursday night.
In the earlier version, the witness had also named two other Syrian intelligence officials and a Lebanese security chief as the main plotters who met several times in Damascus, including at the presidential palace and at Shawkat's office. Both versions of the report identified the witness as a Syrian living in Lebanon who "claims to have worked for the Syrian intelligence services."
Mehlis said Friday he deleted the names because he did not want to give the impression that the witness' allegations were "an established fact." He denied being pressured by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to change the report. "None of these changes were influenced by anyone," Mehlis said.
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