BEIRUT, 23 August 2005 — A UN team investigating the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri will ask for an extension of its mandate when it expires this week, a UN official said yesterday. The Security Council gave the 50-member team led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis a renewable three-month mandate to investigate the February assassination. He began work on May 25.
Many Lebanese accused Syria of being behind the car bomb that killed Hariri, a blast that plunged Lebanon into its worst political crisis since the 1975-90 civil war. Syria denied being involved but, under international pressure, withdrew its troops from the small neighbor it had dominated for nearly 30 years.
Mehlis will present the council with an interim report on Thursday, and expects to need “only an additional few weeks” to complete the probe, UN spokesman Nejib Friji told Reuters. Friji said the report might contain “broad aspects of the investigation at this advanced stage” but gave no details. The report “... will certainly not state any finding or any conclusion regarding the investigation,” a Western diplomatic source said.
