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UN legal team in Beirut planning court to try Hariri case
Deutsche Presse Agentur
Published:
Thursday September 7, 2006
Beirut- A senior legal adviser to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan met Thursday with Lebanese officials to submit a draft plan for the establishment of an international court to try suspects in the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. The under-secretary general for legal affairs, Nicolas Michel, who arrived on Wednesday night, met with Lebanese Justice Minister Charles Rizk and Prime Minister Fouad Seniora.
The UN delegation also include Mark Quarterman, legal advisor, and Alma Saliu, a political advisor to Annan.
"This delegation informed us about the procedures to be followed, I will present a proposal to the government and a decision will be taken, it will then be submitted to parliament for a vote," Rizk told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa after the meeting.
Rizk stressed there was a "national consensus over forming the tribunal," which he said would be composed of two chambers.
The first would be a trial court and would have three judges, one of which would be Lebanese. The second would be an appeals court and would have five judges, two of them Lebanese.
Judicial sources told dpa the international tribunal would meet outside Lebanon for security reasons.
Former premier Hariri was assassinated on February 14, 2005 along with 20 other people in a seafront area of Beirut.
A Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz was appointed by the UN Security Council last January to take over the UN investigation into his killing from his German predecessor, Detlev Mehlis.
The two reports presented by Melhis to the UN security Council had suggested top Syrian and Lebanese officials were involved in the assassination. Syria has vehemently denied any involvement.
Syria was the power-broker in Lebanon until Hariri's assassination, when local and international pressure prompted Damascus to withdraw its troops from its smaller neigbour after a 29- year presence.
© 2006 DPA - Deutsche Presse-Agenteur
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