Mehlis Report - Brief Summary

The below are either paraphrases or direct quotes from the Report. Many details have been left out, so for a more complete picture, please refer to here.

52 witnesses have been interviewed since October 7 to December 2005, 69 investigator notes, eight suspect statements, and a total of 37,000 pages of documents are now in the case file. Yet, although the investigators have made steady progress on the Lebanese side, the same is yet to be matched on the Syrian side.

19 individuals have been identified as "suspects", and based on the gathered evidence to date, these individuals could have been involved in some degree in the planning or execution of the crime.

On Husam T. Husam: The Commission obtained "credible" informaiton that Husam disclosed similar information to close friends which he had given to them. Prior to his recent denial and appearance on Syrian TV, Syrian officials had arrested/threatened some close relatives in Syria.

The Commission is working on providing as "comprehensive and accurate a picture about the events which led up to and followed the explosion of 14 February 2005".

This is key (and was said in the previous report):

Given the extent to which the Syrian and Lebanese intelligence and security services infiltrated daily Lebanese life, and specifically the manner in which they monitored Mr. Hariri's movements, there was little probability that a third party could have undertaken the necessary surveillance of Mr. Hariri, and maintained the resources, logistics, and capacity needed to initiate, plan, and commit a crime of this magnitude.

Telephone transcripts paint a picture in which "the Lebanese security and intelligence apparatus conducted surveillance on high level officials in Lebanon, which was in turn shared with their Syrian counterparts, and particularly, the extent to which both the Lebanese and Syrian security services were closely monitoring Mr. Hariri."

Approximately 26,000 pages have been reviewed and screened.


The Damascus Protocol: The famous and alleged conversation between Bashar and Rafic Hariri, was followed (and is seen as further proof that the conversation did occur) with the following:

Ghazali: Your excellency, in follow up to the meeting that took place and the agreement that we reached concerning the truce and the exchanged political campaigns between you and the President, I have been reading the Future newspaper this (...) "officials protect the corruption". This talk is like a violation of the truce. Why is this subject, your Excellency? Didn't we agree to stop the subject?

Hariri: (...) statement was all over the newspapers, and in fact I was first ...

Ghazali: I would like to ask you a question, Your excellency, are you still committed to the agreement?

Hariri: Of course.

Because the Commission has not had time to complete a meaningfully investigate several lines of inquiries, they should be followed up.

"Extraneous events cannot, and should not be used to distract the Commission from the mandate given to it by the Security Council to help identify the perpetrators, sponsors, organizers, and accomplices in the terrorist act which took place in Beirut on 14 February 2005."

In order for all aspects of the case in question to fully investigated, the Syrian authorities need to fully and unconditionaly cooperate.

posted by Lazarus, 1:29 PM