New Evidence ‘Strengthens’ Hariri Case, Investigator Says

The U.N. investigator leading the probe into the February killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri said Monday that fresh evidence bolstered his earlier conclusion that senior Syrian and Lebanese officials were involved, and he accused Syrian officials of impeding his investigation.

The findings, which came on the same day that another outspoken critic of Syrian interference in Lebanon was killed by a car bomb, could pave the way for sanctions against individuals or the Syrian government, diplomats said.

In his second report to the Security Council, German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis said new information from additional witnesses and sources “strengthens the evidence confirmed to date against the Lebanese officers in custody, as well as high-ranked Syrian officers.”

Investigators managed to interview five high-level Syrian officials at the U.N. compound in Vienna this month. Their names were not released, but U.N. diplomats said Rustum Ghazale, the Syrian intelligence chief in charge when Hariri was assassinated, was among those interviewed.

The report said the team had identified 19 suspects in Hariri’s slaying or the subsequent cover-up, including four prominent Lebanese generals being detained in Lebanon and a man now held in France.

But Mehlis complained that Syrian authorities were hindering the investigation in other ways. Witnesses said that all Syrian intelligence documents relating to Lebanon had been burned, and the report stated that Syrian officials had said no material related to the assassination had been found in intelligence archives.

The chief investigator also said the Syrian government appeared to be manipulating and intimidating witnesses. One key witness, Husam Taher Husam, recanted his testimony on television, but Mehlis wrote that Husam’s change of story was probably a result of threats and of arrests of his close relatives in Syria made shortly before the broadcast.

In his first report in October, Mehlis outlined a plot that read like a thriller, suggesting that top-ranking Syrian officials had collaborated with allies in Lebanese intelligence for months to arrange Hariri’s assassination, complete with a decoy suicide bomber who has since disappeared and is presumed to be dead.

A draft of Mehlis’ report named members of the Syrian president’s inner circle as suspects, including Asef Shawkat, the president’s brother-in-law and head of military intelligence, and Maher Assad, the president’s younger brother and effective commander of the Republican Guard. The names were dropped from the final version released to the public.

Monday’s report added details from witnesses about the “organized operation” to kill Hariri involving Syrian officials and special agents recruited by Lebanese intelligence officers. It described the bugging of Hariri’s telephone and unauthorized road work on the street where a suicide car bomber blew up Hariri’s limousine, killing the prime minister and 22 others.

It also noted that a high-level Syrian official supplied arms to groups in Lebanon after Hariri’s death “in order to create public disorder in response to any accusations of Syrian involvement in the Hariri assassination.”

If true, that would violate Security Council Resolution 1559, which demands the total withdrawal of foreign forces from Lebanon and noninterference in the country -- a violation that could also draw sanctions.

Syrian officials have denied any involvement, and President Bashar Assad has pledged to punish any official proved guilty of participating in the plot.

On Monday, Mehlis attended a special Security Council session that condemned the assassination of Gibran Tueni, a newspaper owner and parliament member who had also vocally criticized Syria’s domination of Lebanon. Mehlis seemed shaken by the killing, calling it “horrible” and noting that he had interviewed Tueni as a witness. The October report quoted Tueni saying that Hariri had told him that Assad had once threatened the Lebanese prime minister’s life.

Mehlis declined to link Tueni’s assassination to Hariri’s, but the killing added urgency to the U.N.’s effort to stabilize relations between Lebanon and Syria, and to intensify the probe into Hariri’s assassination.

The report asked for an extension for the investigation, slated to end Thursday, in order to follow new leads. Mehlis confirmed that he will step down when his six-month mandate ends Jan. 1, and return to his job as a prosecutor in Germany.

He said he would continue to provide advice to his successor, who has yet to be named.

Today, the Security Council will meet to discuss the report with Mehlis.

Algerian Ambassador Abdallah Baali said Syria had made efforts to work with the investigative team after a slow start. “I don’t think at this stage there is anything that warrants sanctions,” he said.

But U.S. Ambassador John R. Bolton listed the burning of documents and witness manipulation and intimidation as evidence of recalcitrance. “That is not cooperation, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “That is obstruction of justice by the government of Syria.”