Expectations and contrasting rumours surround UN report on Hariri assassination
Beirut (AsiaNews) As the date for the release of the report on the February 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri gets nearer expectations are growing. UN envoy Detlev Mehlis, who headed the team of investigators into the affaire, is set to hand in his report to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on October 21
"This report will have consequences. Those who assassinated Rafik Hariri will pay for their crime; the report will be published so that Lebanon, Arab countries and the world may know what to believe," said Saad Hariri, son of the murdered former Prime Minister and leader of the Future Party in the current Lebanese parliament.
The Mehlis report was the subject of talks held by Saad Hariri and Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir. At end of the meeting in Rome (Italy), where the Patriarch is attending the Synod of Bishop, Hariri said he was "optimistic like the Patriarch".
Mr Hariri said that he and his party will accept the report's findings "whatever they may be". He also wondered why some sources are hindering it "if, as they claim, it is empty".
"There are some people who, as we wait for the report, are trying to plunge the country in a atmosphere of fear," Hariri said.
Asked whether in his meeting with the Patriarch the issue of security was raised, Hariri said that "we are all apprehensive about security and the Patriarch is no exception."
Detlev Mehlis will complete the report over the next ten days in Cyprus where he is scheduled to arrive today.
According to Lebanese daily An- Nahar, the team of UN investigators that is working for Mehlis left Beirut last night for the Cyprus to assist the German magistrate in finishing his report.
Meanwhile, all sorts of rumours are flying around over the alleged role of Syria and its Lebanese allies in the Hariri assassination.
Syrian daily Assawra (The Revolution) writes that today Lebanon and Syria are the object of a "vast conspiracy", that the UN commission of inquiry is victim of false witnesses, that Mehlis is in crisis and visited Lebanese Prime Minister to inform the latter that he was incapable of continuing the inquiry.
In Beirut, An-Nahar reports that US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch is expected in Lebanon tomorrow for talks with Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.
Welch, who was in Egypt in the last few days, said that he expected the Mehlis report to be "an opportunity for the international community to send a strong signal to the Syrians about their bad conduct".
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19/10/2005
