DAMASCUS, 23 October 2005 — The son of slain former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri called yesterday for an international trial of his killers as Syria pledged to continue cooperation with the ongoing UN inquiry. A day after a UN report implicated senior Syrian and Lebanese intelligence figures in Hariri’s murder, the Lebanese government called the report a thoroughly professional work and the country’s police said they had evidence of a wider Syrian plot to bomb its smaller neighbor.
Hariri’s son and political heir, Saad, said in a televised address to the Lebanese from his temporary residence in Jeddah, that he was seeking justice, not revenge. “We call on the international community to uphold its support for the international commission into the assassination of Hariri to unearth the full truth and bring the perpetrators to justice in an international court,” he said.
At a news conference here, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Ahmed Arnous and the ministry’s adviser Riad Al-Daoudi criticized the report by the head of the UN investigation team, German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, saying that its contents and the way it was released to the media even before handing it over to the Security Council members showed that it was “politically motivated and biased with the view of hurting Syria.”
Daoudi, however, added: “Syria will remain committed to the international legitimacy resolutions. Hence, we will continue to cooperate with the UN team investigating the Hariri murder.”
“We will cooperate but we’ll see what are the boundaries of this cooperation and its elements,” he said, adding that talk of sanctions against Syria was premature.
A written statement distributed by the Syrian Foreign Ministry later said that the UN report was largely influenced by the political atmosphere and anti-Syrian views that spread in Lebanon after the assassination of Hariri on Feb.
The Lebanese Cabinet welcomed the UN report.
“The report lived up to the hopes of the Lebanese people... It provides the basis for finding the truth... and punishing those responsible,” Information Minister Ghazi Aridi told reporters after the cabinet meeting.
But asked if ministers wanted to see a trial before an international tribunal, he said: “It’s still too early to discuss this question as the UN commission has yet to complete its inquiry.”
The Lebanese police statement said three Lebanese suspects in custody had confessed under interrogation to taking money from a Lebanese go-between for a foreign agent of Syria to carry out bomb attacks around Beirut after its April troop withdrawal. The go-between, identified only as Hassan M., 33, remained at large, the statement added.
“Prior to the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon and at the urging of an intelligence agent of non-Lebanese nationality, the fugitive Hassan M. paid several people to commit terrorist acts by throwing bombs and starting firefights in Beirut and its outskirts in order to sow unrest.” The statement identified the suspects in custody as Ahmed H., 25, Ali M., 25, and Malek M., 47 and said all three had confessed to being “recruited without proceeding to action.”
Meanwhile, coalition forces killed 20 insurgents suspected of sheltering Al-Qaeda militants yesterday during raids in Husaybah, near the border with Syria, the US military said. “Twenty terrorists suspected of sheltering Al-Qaeda in Iraq foreign fighters were killed and one captured during coalition raids on a series of safe houses in Husaybah,” it said. In a western part of Nineveh, a Sunni-dominated province in northwestern Iraq, US and Iraqi forces “captured five terrorists and nine smugglers in the past 24 hours. Two of these men are senior-level leaders responsible for planning and funding terrorism in the northern area of Iraq,” a separate statement said.
In Husaybah, “coalition forces raided two neighborhoods and discovered two large weapons caches containing small arms, ammunition, rocket propelled grenades, mortar rounds, explosives, and bomb-making materials,” it said.
A car bomb was also found near one a safe house, and both were destroyed along with four other houses. Multinational forces also discovered 10 weapons caches and arrested 16 suspected insurgents during two operations in northern Iraq on Monday and Tuesday.
— Additional input from agencies
