From Beirut to the Beltway

Detlev Mehlis Sunday submitted his second progress report to the UN security council, after six months of unprecedented investigative work aimed at assisting the Lebanese government in finding and eventually prosecuting the killers responsible for the Hariri assassination.

In 25 pages, the second report outlined the progress since the last report, which had concluded that the crime could not have happened without the knowledge and perhaps complicity of high ranking Syrian officials. Since then, the UNIIIC has been pursuing and building on many lines of enquiry, as well as "cross-checking" and "evaluating" the statements of 500 witnesses and 19 individuals so far identified as suspects.

The report points to new testimonies, one of which "strengthens the evidence confirmed to date against the Lebanese officers in custody, as well as high-ranked Syrian officers."

A number of new witnesses, whose testimonies are under evaluation, have provided the commission with "potentially critical information about the assassination." However, a new witness, who "has been assessed to be credible and the information he has submitted to be reliable", submitted in late October "a comprehensive and coherent statement regarding plans to assassinate Mr. Hariri."

The detailed information points directly at perpetrators, sponsors and organizers of an organized operation aiming at killing Mr. Hariri, including the recruitment of special agents by the Lebanese and Syrian intelligence services, handling of improvised explosive devices, a pattern of threats against targeted individuals, and planning of other criminal activities.

Perhaps as significant as the above, the UN report found links between the Hariri assassination and the wave of killings that has been targeted anti-Syrian figures.

It was reported to the Commission that, after the assassination of Mr. Hariri, a high-level Syrian official supplied arms and ammunition to groups and individuals in Lebanon in order to create public disorder in response to any accusations of Syrian involvement in the Hariri assassination.

The significance of the above lies in that the above mentioned groups have been enabled by the Syrian regime with the means to attack any target they deem hostile to Syrian interests in Lebanon, without the necessity of a direct intervention from Syria. This is not different from the way the Syrian regime has enabled terrorists in Iraq to wreak havoc, all in the name of resistance to occupation.

Also worth noting is the revelation that Syrian intelligence has burned all documents related to the Hariri assassination. The Lebanese military intelligence has also reportedly erased archives of transcripts of phone calls intercepted by the agency between October 2004 and March 20005.

The UNIIIC has embarked on an ambitious attempt to understand the modus operandi and motives of all possible perpetrators. Section D in the report speaks of a "steady pattern of converging circumstantial evidence related to the motive for the crime." More importantly, the commission "has not found any significant evidence that alters the conclusion of probably cause which is set out in the previous report concerning the involvement of top-ranked Syrian and Lebanese officials."

There was little probability that a third party could have undertaken the necessary surveillance of Mr. Hariri, and maintained the resources, logistics and capacity to initiate, plan and commit a crime of this magnitude.

The report then goes on to detail how the commission is going about pursuing the different lines of enquiry and what remains to be pursued, which is a lot and requires a long period of time.

On Syrian cooperation and the Syrian Judicial Commission

UNSC resolution 1636 gave the UNIIIC the "same rights and [authority] vis-à-vis the Syrian Arab republic as it has been granted in Lebanon, and the authority to determine the location and modalities for interview of Syrian officials." The report describes the torturous road to Syrian cooperation in lengthy detail.

The report then raises doubts over the exact role of the Syrian Judicial commission. While it welcomes its establishment, the UNIIIC had to often remind the Syrian regime that the Syrian commission cannot invalidate or substitute for UNIIIC's own work. Its function, as viewed by the UN commission, should be to "share their part of the responsibility and… help establish the truth" as it is "only the actual and continuous responsiveness of the Syrian authorities that will remove any doubt about Syrian substantive movement in the case."

Unfortunately, the Syrian commission proved to be part of the attempt to "hinder the investigation internally and procedurally."

The Syrian Commission organized a press conference with a Syrian witness who
gave journalists an opportunity to question him before the Judicial Commission
could do so, and who contradicted prior sworn evidence given to the commission.

The UNIIIC report said it has evidence of threats made against relatives of Husam Husam, who is "being manipulated by the Syrian authorities, raising serious questions about whether the Syria Judicial Commission is committed to conducting an independent, transparent and professional investigation." Last month, Syrian state television aired the retraction of Husam, a Syrian intelligence agent who claimed he was bribed and tortured by Hariri's son Saad to falsify his testimony. (See my previous posts on this here, here, here and here)

Remarks

The report will not satisfy those who want to see fingerprints and photographs of Assad fitting the Mitsubishi van with explosives to entertain the possibility of his regime's guilt.
Many commentators continue to attack the Mehlis reports for alleged lack of evidence, despite the enormity of the task ahead, the amount of work achieved so far, the lack and at best slow-paced Syrian cooperation, and the fact that no criminal investigation anywhere in the world can do what the Syrian regime's supporters and other dishonest commentators expect the UNIIIC to do: reveal all evidence to the public before the trial.

Only one investigation is capable and has been engaging in that sort of legal heresy: The Syrian Judicial commission. The Mehlis critics out there continue to hold his commission to the low standards set by the Syrian regime; standards that can only stem from ignorance and delusion.

Ask yourself this question: Which criminal investigation displays all its witnesses on the pages of papers and on television screens before they are interrogated and before they get their day in court? Which commission has become a platform for smear campaigns against anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians, who are being assassinated one after the other?? The Syrian commission.

Which criminal investigation is conducting a systematic and methodical investigation and still uses terms like "may have been involved" when referring to individuals it calls "suspects" who are "presumed innocent until proven guilty after trial." The UNIIIC.

For some reason, people expect a professional commission of international experts to follow the Syrian model, which uses TV screens and torture chambers to "investigate" murders.

You do not need a law degree to know that no criminal investigation would ever publish all of its findings in a public report before trial time. The conclusion that there is no strong evidence is to be determined by the court, not by the commission and certainly not by the self-appointed pundits. When crimes are committed, a court decides on the guilt or innocence of involved parties. Not pre-trial reports by the prosecution or the defendants!

Some people are so naïve they let themselves be led to the false notion that no court is needed if the prosecution doesn't present "convincing" evidence in the open. This masked rejection of justice has managed to convince people that justice lives in the safe corridors of the media. It's a pathetically ignorant and shameless yet highly contagious line of thinking that is symptomatic of the selective sense of justice prevalent in this region and elsewhere.