Detlev Mehlis, head of the UN team investigating the murder of former Premier Rafik Hariri, has formed a special committee to determine which team members will stay in Lebanon until the end of the year, according to sources close to The Daily Star. This comes as Mehlis is preparing the investigation report with his senior aides in Vienna due to be handed over to the UN Security Council by the end of this month. The report is expected to include an outline of the investigation's progress as well as details describing how the murder was executed.The sources explained Wednesday that Mehlis - who has repeatedly said he will not be able to determine the identity of the perpetrators and the murder plot before the end of the investigation - hopes to show the considerable effort made by his team by publicizing details on how the assassination was carried out. Hence, sources expect the report to include a major part on the logistics and technical side of the crime that claimed the lives of Hariri and 20 others last February. However, judicial sources say this technical description of how the crime was committed does not include any new information that was not gleaned by the Lebanese investigation. The same sources added that Mehlis has adopted an account in his report indicating the Mitsubishi automobile suspected of carrying the explosions that killed Hariri entered Lebanon through Syria. Another unofficial and nonfinal version says the car entered Lebanon through the Northern port of Tripoli.
The Daily Star sources also speculated the report will describe Syria's level of cooperation during the investigations Mehlis' team carried out with top Syrian officials two weeks ago in Damascus as either "insufficient or unacceptable." The report will also include an assessment of the work of the Lebanese security and judicial sector, and that this assessment may determine the nature and the location of the court that will handle the case.
Meanwhile Germany's News Agency quoted Imad Sadik, brother of leading Syrian witness in the case Mohammad Zuheir, who fled Syria after the assassination, saying "the UN investigation team will not reach any results as long they rely on witnesses like my brother." Sadik said: "Mehlis and the country that hosted Zuheir would be idiots if they listen to my brother." Sadik also accused Telecommunication Minister Marwan Hamade of "staging his brother's plot to testify against Syria."