Lebanon: A tribunal that will never produce justice

Michael Young

The Daily Star

The U.N. investigation of the assassination of Rafik Hariri is a sham, said Michael Young. It’s been nearly five years since the former Lebanese prime minister was killed in a massive car bombing widely blamed on Syrian agents, yet the U.N.’s Special Tribunal for Lebanon still has not a single suspect in custody.

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The tribunal’s first prosecutor, Detlev Mehlis, told me that then–Secretary-General Kofi Annan practically ordered him not to pursue the investigation aggressively, because he “did not want another trouble spot” in the Middle East. The man who succeeded Mehlis, Serge Brammertz, evidently heeded that dictum and simply “wasted time and resources.” The current prosecutor, Daniel Bellemare, is no better. Under his tenure, the investigation didn’t merely stall, it actually went backward. He has now declared the key “suspect and witness,” Mohammed Siddiq, “no longer of interest to the case” and has unfrozen the assets of Syrian intelligence officials, effectively conceding that there is no evidence against them.

“The Lebanon tribunal is not yet dead, but it seems very nearly there.” The “charade” has gone on long enough. “Bellemare has to provide real answers soon, or else it’s time to close his stumbling operation down.”