Detlev Mehlis' initial report on the assassination of Rafik Al-Hariri raises new political scenarios in the Middle East. Al-Ahram Weekly provides special in-depth coverage and expert analysis on the various political and legal issues stemming from the investigation's findings Upping the pressure The Mehlis report on the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister raises difficult questions for Lahoud and Al-Assad, writes Nicola Nassif* The final report of the international committee investigating the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri does not directly accuse Syria. Nor was its completion heralded as "the truth" the Lebanese have been waiting for. Neither, however, did it bypass perceptions of the German magistrate Detlev Mehlis's politicisation. The committee's report considers the assassination a political crime resulting from political motives that will, in turn, lead to political outcomes. In this, the report embraces a political mindset parallel in importance to its judicial thinking. While some international standards for judicial examination have been established -- asserting that suspects should be presumed innocent until an impartial international trial proves them otherwise -- few questions have been answered about how to separate law from politics in practice. Beginning when the international investigative committee undertook its mission in Beirut on 16 June in accordance with UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1595 issued on 7 April, Mehlis depended on advice provided by outgoing committee president Peter Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald told his successor not to trust the Lebanese judiciary or security agencies. Later, and in contradiction to what he stated in his final report, Mehlis adopted this advice in successive steps, some of which were alarming: avoiding the Lebanese media; depending on witnesses who stipulated they not be brought before the Lebanese judiciary or that it have access to their names or testimonies; concealing from the Lebanese examining magistrate the stages of his investigations for three months; and ordering the arrest on 30 August of four senior Lebanese officers who headed security agencies. With this move came two significant outcomes: first, direct communications between the Lebanese and Syrian security systems was cut; second, an indirect message was sent to Damascus indicating that it should anticipate being revealed as involved in the Al-Hariri assassination. This, indeed, is the primary assumption made in Mehlis's report -- that it would not have been possible for the plot and its execution to take place without the consent of high-level Syrian security officials or collusion with their Lebanese peers. This extends to the level of the presidency itself. Mehlis navigated a map of telephone communications that led him to suspect Mahmoud Abdul-Aal, a Lebanese official in the fundamentalist Sunni Islamic Charity Initiatives Association. It was revealed that Abdul-Aal had ties to the leader of the republican guard and that he made dozens of phone calls in record time before and after the assassination, including one to the president of the republic, Emile Lahoud. Following an extremely professional investigation and analysis, including interviewing hundreds of witnesses, the Mehlis report puts extremely serious conclusions before the Lebanese. Lebanese-Syrian relations, first, have been put on a possible confrontation course, warded off until now by three of the current pillars of Lebanese authority -- Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora, head of the parliamentary majority Saad Al-Hariri and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. Following Al-Hariri's assassination, they blamed Syria for souring Al-Hariri's relations with Damascus and refusing the extension of his term as prime minister, and then forcing him to continue and later resign. Yet accusations that the Syrian leadership was involved in the assassination were late coming. Perhaps even more than Al-Siniora, Saad Al-Hariri and Jumblatt had expected, Mehlis's naming of four senior Syrian officials as having taken the decision to assassinate the former prime minister places overall responsibility at the highest level. Two of these officials form part of the Syrian president's closest circle. They are the primary opponents to the "old guard" in the regime and, since 2000, have gradually contributed to the removal of its prominent figures. One of them is the president's brother, the other his son-in- law -- commander of the Republican Guard Colonel Maher Al-Assad and branch head of Syrian military intelligence Major General Assef Shuket respectively. Given the important role of General Major Bahjat Suleiman, who was known in the days of late president Hafez Al-Assad to have trained Bashar to take the place of his ill father, as well as General Major Hassan Khalil, brother-in-law of Assef Shuket, the naming of Maher Al-Assad and Assef Shuket as responsible for the decision to assassinate Al-Hariri, alongside a senior Lebanese security official, Jamil Al-Sayid, directly puts the Syrian president in the frontline. It is no secret that Maher Al-Assad and Assef Shuket publicly, and repeatedly, announced their political and personal animosity towards Al-Hariri. A meeting between Al-Hariri and Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad on 24 August 2004 confirmed the new developments: Al-Hariri reportedly said to Al-Assad that he had known him for 25 years, alluding to a long and positive relationship enjoyed with his late father. Al-Assad replied "but I have only known you for four years". As to the Lebanese president, the Lebanese constitution does not provide means for impeachment unless the president is accused of grand treason or breaching the constitution. Lahoud's insistence in retaining his position until the end of his term in 2007 is tied to his continued support by three forces -- the Maronite Patriarch Mar Nasrallah Boutros Sfir, the secretary- general of Hizbullah Hassan Nasrallah and the opposition leader Michel Aoun, a candidate for the post when it empties. The withdrawal of the Syrian army and its military intelligence from Lebanon on 26 April, together with the arrest of the president's top security staff, caused Lahoud to lose his real power, which, since his election in 1998, was dependent on Syria's presence. Since then he has only been able to arm himself with limited powers provided by the constitution in facing off the ministerial majority that dominates Al-Siniora's government by two-thirds. Despite this, Al-Siniora, Saad Al-Hariri and Jumblatt have been wary of seeking to replace the current president for reasons tied to the will of two men, the Maronite Patriarch and Hassan Nasrallah. The fact is that Lahoud retaining rule is more of an imaginary scarecrow erected in an arena of complex political scuffling. Sfir fears the precedent of the president's toppling resulting in undercutting the post filled by the Maronite sect and stripping it of prestige without a prior agreement on who will replace him. Yet he also fears the dismissal of a president who has not been proven by the court of involvement in the assassination, just as he is against a successive president being chosen by Muslim leaders. As for Nasrallah, he fears that the Mehlis report will serve as a window for the implementation of what remains of UNSC Resolution 1559; that is, the disarming of Hizbullah. Leaders of Hizbullah have not stopped visiting Damascus since its army withdrew from Lebanon, with reliable sources indicating that regular secret meetings are being held between Al-Assad and Nasrallah, and it appears that Hizbullah is the real force holding back Al-Siniora, Saad Al-Hariri and Jumblatt. This has led to the three publicly relinquishing their support for the disarming of Hizbullah. Al-Siniora and Jumblatt have also made light of calls to form an international court that would place the Al-Assad regime under the umbrella of the United Nations for involvement in Al-Hariri's assassination. Saad Al-Hariri, meanwhile, stressed justice over retribution when referring to Syria. * The writer is a senior Lebanese columnist at An- Nahar newspaper.
