Syrian lawyers letter to UN chief on Hariri assassination report
Syria-Lebanon-UN, Politics, 10/24/2005

Syrian lawyers and judges on Sunday staged a march in protest of the findings of the international investigation committee report into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minster Rafik Hariri which lacked evidences and proofs.

The march started from the Bar Association HQ and ended outside the UN Office in Damascus.

Head of the bar association Ahmad Eido handed the representative of the UN organization a letter addressed to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. The letter said the Syrian lawyers had very carefully studied the report and decided to send a letter to Annan because the report included serious legal mistakes and violations of minimum basics of judiciary work and investigations as well as the duties of the Attorney General and prosecution.

The letter said the lawyers hoped that these remarks could be helpful for the UN Secretary General, the Security Council Member States and the investigation committee to avoid a historical mistake that could lead to wrong repercussions irrelevant to the aim of the committee.

The letter added that the report depended on the testimonies of witnesses who are political foes of Syria and had a role in making and forming a harmful atmosphere in Lebanon before, during and after the crime against Hariri in a way that misled the committee through their testimonies.

The lawyers said in the letter that the committee ignored a set of facts and events in terms of the sequence of political and historical events and jumps in an unjustified way to conclusions away from transparency or due legal procedures.

It added the report also ignored facts that led to the killings of Syrian workers and the destruction of their properties within a feverish political and media atmosphere, nor it pointed out to the cicrles that stood behind such crimes.

The letter stressed that the report ignored the fact that Syria had fully cooperated with the committee as it was acknowledged by its own head Mr. Detlev Mehlis. Besides, the committee didn't clarify the reasons of contradictions between Mehlis' statements on this issue and between what was mentioned in the report.

It said the report was political in nature in its introduction and content as well as the conclusion, thereby making the whole report lacking the very conditions of correct legal work as well as transparency and neutrality.

"There is a need for waiting for the final outcomes of the investigations so that the international community can see the full truth and take proper decisions," the letter added.

"The assassination of Hariri was a crime that targeted not only a leading prominent figure known in Lebanon, the Arab arena and the world but also was meant to assassinate the Syrian-Lebanese relationship which constituted one of the main factors of stability in the region," it stressed.

The letter appealed to the UN Chief to distribute the letter to the UN member states in general and the member states of the Security Council in particular. It also called on the committee to commit themselves to the rules of legal and judicial regulations applied in investigations.

It added that the Syrian lawyers and judges, "while seeing that their country is under severe pressures by a superpower due to its stances over the American occupation of Iraq and rejection to abandon its occupied lands in the Golan and its firm sovereign rights, Israel still rejects to observe the international resolutions assisted by the US support."

"it is strange that the committee ignores the Israeli role in the assassination of Hariri and in destabilizing Lebanon serve its own interests in the region," the letter said.

"The Syrian Bar Association would present to your Excellency ( UN Chief) a detailed study of the flaws and serious legal mistakes in Mehlis report," it concluded.

Previous Stories:
  Mehlis report challenged as contrary to truth, and is political   (10/22/2005)
  Miqdad stresses Syria's cooperative stance in Hariri investigation   (10/22/2005)
  Hoss: Mehlis report should not be exploited to harm the Syrian-Lebanese relations   (10/22/2005)
  Syria's speech before UN   (9/24/2005)
  Larsen meets al-Assad after accusations of Syrian security intelligence in Lebanon   (6/13/2005)

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