07 December 2005

BEIRUT: As United Nations chief investigator Detlev Mehlis gets ready to leave Lebanon with his final report on the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri, Houssam Taher Houssam, the Syrian witness who publicly confessed to having lied to investigators, joined three Syrian officers for questioning in Vienna.

The Lebanese Foreign Ministry has also submitted an official request to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the UN Security Council for an extension of the UN probe's mandate, which is due to end December 15, for another six months.

Security sources said Tuesday that Mehlis "is currently waiting for the results of the interrogations of the Syrian officials in Vienna to add it to his near-complete report," and that he is expected to deliver it to the UN before the end of his mandate.

German Ambassador to the UN G?nter Pleuger told the Arabic daily Al-Hayat he "personally spoke to Mehlis" and that Mehlis "will quit his post after presenting his report to the UN on December 13."

In an article published Tuesday, The New York Times quoted Mehlis as saying: "I have committed myself to the UN until the 15th of December. That will be the end of my personal mandate ... I never asked for this assignment. I agreed to be available for up to seven months."

Mehlis' spokesperson told reporters that the prosecutor had made it clear his work would last "for six to seven months only. If at any time his services were to be required he would certainly make himself available beyond the middle of December," but there appears no clear decision as to Mehlis' successor.

Brigadier General Rustom Ghazaleh, the head of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon from 2002 till 2005, and Colonel Jamaa Jamaa, returned to Damascus "late Monday after they were interrogated by the UN investigators," according to Al Hayat's Tuesday edition.

The daily reported the questioning of Ghazaleh earlier this week in Vienna had focused on phone records between the General and Lebanese political figures and sought to uncover the nature of the Syrian official's work and who filled security posts in Lebanon before Hariri's murder.

The interrogation of three remaining Syrian officials is ex-

pected to resume on Wednes-day, according to diplomatic sources in Vienna.

It is understood the three Syr-ians are Brigadier General Ab-dul Karim Abbas, who was ac-cused by witness Zuheir Siddiq of preparing the Mitsubishi van suspected in carrying the explo-sions which detonated Hariri's convoy; General Zafer Youssef, a Syrian telecommunications expert who is thought to have jammed Hariri's anti-explosives signals; and Colonel Samih Qashaami, whom Taher Hous-sam accused of inspecting the crime site before the explosion.

However, Qashaami's inter-rogation "will not happen on Wednesday," according to Lebanese satellite station LBCI on Tuesday night.

UN sources told Al-Hayat more thorough investigations may resume in January.

Al-Hayat also identified the attorneys accompanying the Syrian officials as former Dam-ascus University law faculty dean Abboud Sarraj, Khalil Taalouba, Razi Deeb, Mazen Khaddo, Basil Hamdan and Hael Youssoufi, in addition to Riad Daoudi.

UN Spokesperson Farhan Haq toldThe Daily Star in New York Tuesday that Syria "made all the arrangements for its of-ficers and those accompanying them to go to Vienna, including travel arrangements and ac-commodation." Another UN official said on condition of anonymity there was no information on the course of investigation in Vienna, and that the UN "is not interfer-ing in the investigation's course." Meanwhile, Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa paid a short visit to Egypt Tuesday, during which he submitted a letter from President Bashar Assad to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

Sharaa told reporters in Cairo "there are some people inside Lebanon and outside it that are trying to internationalize the Lebanese issue ... to harm Syria ... whenever we try to fix our re-lations with Lebanon, there is someone who tries to sabotage this relation from Lebanon." He added: "We are hoping the investigations will take their normal course without being politicized." During a demonstration in Damascus on Tuesday, students hoisted a banner bearing 30,000 signatures and a letter addressed to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan calling for "neutral" investigations.

In other developments, Lebanese judicial sources said Houssam's Lebanese fianc?e Tharwat Houjeiri, "gave a very important and interesting statement to the Lebanese Ju-diciary, which submitted a copy of it to the UN probe." The sources said Houjeiri re-vealed that she had been walk-ing through Beirut's Ain al-Mreisseh neighborhood (the area in which Hariri was assas-sinated) 15 minutes before the explosion on February 14 took place. She said Taher Houssam had received a phone call from Jamaa telling him "to leave the area as quickly as possible be-cause a massive explosion" was about to happen.

The sources quoted Houjeiri as saying Taher Houssam later told her "Jamaa saved our lives." The sources added Houjeiri made clear she was not pres-sured to make such a statement.

- Additional reporting by Majdoline Hatoum, With Agencies