DAMASCUS, 21 October 2005 — The head of a UN investigation into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri turned over to Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday a report that diplomatic and political sources said would implicate Syrian and Lebanese officials.
Annan planned to transmit the report by veteran German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis to the 15-nation Security Council and to the Lebanese government today. Mehlis had no plan to give an advance copy to Damascus, UN chief spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Syrians anxiously awaited the findings of the report. They feared that in the event of the report implicating Syria, the country could face economic sanctions or even military action.
A presidential decree on Wednesday granting all Syrian employees in the public sector a bonus of 50 percent of their basic salaries and the official talk of an impending “huge increment” have failed to clear the gloom.
“God Protect Syria! The serious drama against the nation has been already plotted by the US and its allies and we will for sure be implicated by the report. There is no justice in this world and we will have no other options but to watch the play prepared by the enemies of our country and face its consequences,” said Imad Hamshu, a Syrian writer.
Jihad Sa’ad echoed Hamshu’s views saying the arrest of Mohammed Zuhair Al-Siddiq, who had been earlier interviewed by Mehlis as the prime Syrian witness in the UN inquiry over Hariri killing, indicated that those who “have fabricated the Siddiq story as a witness are trying now to use him as a tool to implicate Syria after Mehlis had been fooled by his big lies against his home country.”
The United States is seeking tough action against Syria and Western powers are already discussing their response.
Syria has grown increasingly nervous over how strongly the report will implicate its officials in the assassination of Hariri and 20 others in a Beirut truck bombing on Feb. 14.
Syrian President Bashar Assad insisted last week that his country was “100 percent innocent.” But the German news magazine Stern said this week that Mehlis would name Bashar’s brother-in-law, Syrian military intelligence chief Asef Shawkat, as a suspect in the deadly blast. Shawkat is widely seen as the second most powerful man in Syria after Bashar. For Mehlis to point the finger at a member of Bashar’s inner circle would be political dynamite.
Annan warned reporters on Wednesday against seeking to exaggerate or politicize the report ahead of its release.
In Beirut, the chief of Hezbollah said the UN report must not take any political side, warning of dangerous consequences.
“We fear that the Mehlis report could be politicized as this is a report that will have dangerous repercussions since the crime is serious,” Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah told supporters in Beirut.
“We want to have clear and irrefutable conclusions,” said Nasrallah. “We are in favor of the criminals being punished whatever their identity.”
— Additional input from agencies
