CAIRO, 20 October 2005 — Lebanese politician Saad Hariri yesterday urged an international trial for suspects in his father’s assassination, days ahead of the expected release by a UN investigating panel of a report on the murder.
“We could not carry out the investigation and requested the help of the UN. Of course, we will demand an international trial,” Hariri told reporters in Cairo after a meeting with Arab League chief Amr Mussa.
Former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, Saad’s father, was assassinated in February, in a Beirut bombing widely blamed on Syria and its allies in Lebanon. Syria has vehemently denied any involvement.
The German magistrate heading a UN probe into the killing, Detlev Mehlis, is due tomorrow to deliver his report to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
“Mehlis report will be clear and we will find out who committed the crime,” said Saad, who now heads the largest faction in the Lebanese Parliament.
Earlier, he held a two-hour meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that focused on the much-awaited report, as well as developments in Lebanon and Lebanese-Syrian relations following the assassination.
“Lebanon’s stability is important to Egypt,” Saad said. He added that Egypt considered his father’s murder “a big crime.” The younger Hariri also asserted that certain countries were trying to exploit his father’s death for their own interests, particularly the fallout with Syria that many accused of having a hand in the murder.
“We should not allow them to do so,” he said, without naming any country. But he stressed that “we should demand justice and the truth.”
The Arab League chief withheld comment pending the outcome of the probe, but expressed concern over Lebanon’s stability. “We are waiting for the report,” he told AFP. “Of course we fear for Lebanon’s stability. The stability of Lebanon is important to us all,” Mussa added.
Saad arrived in the Egyptian capital early yesterday and aides said he would also travel to Saudi Arabia for talks with the Kingdom’s leaders.
Syrian President Bashar Assad told a German newspaper that Syria was in no way involved in the killing of Hariri. “We are 100 percent innocent,” Bashar said in an interview in Die Zeit weekly newspaper released yesterday.
Lebanese political sources and diplomats expect it to charge Syrian and Lebanese officials with the murder, which led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Beirut after mass protests.
Bashar told Die Zeit that Hariri’s assassination was a crime which Syria did not understand.
“Also what has happened in Lebanon is not in Syria’s interests. Quite the opposite. It damages us. Why should we support such acts?” Bashar said, adding that Syria was fully cooperating with UN investigators.
