The Lebanese prime minister requested assistance from the United Nations with the investigation into the assassination of a leading general. Prime Minister Fuad Saniora issued a request to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for technical assistance into the death of Brig. Gen. Francois Hajj, who was slated for the next head of the Lebanese army. The United Nations is currently investigating the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and 18 other allegedly politically motivated assassinations and bombings.
An explosive-laden car was detonated by remote control, killing Hajj and his driver Wednesday morning in the Christian suburb of Baabda. In his departing message to the Security Council, Serge Brammertz, charged with overseeing the Hariri investigation, expressed confidence that those involved in the assassinations will face a tribunal to answer for their crimes.
Brammertz said in November that "operational links may exist" between the spate of assassinations in Lebanon since 2005. "Confirming these operational links will be one of the commission's highest priorities in the months to come," Brammertz said before the council. He said the assassination of Lebanese parliamentarian Antoine Ghanem on Sept. 19, three days after he returned from an overseas visit, suggested the team of perpetrators were well equipped and operationally expedient. The Ghanem assassination and evidence from the Hariri probe confirms "that the perpetrators or groups of perpetrators had and still have advanced and extensive operational capacities available in Beirut."
Rafik Hariri and 22 others were killed when a "likely" male suicide bomber detonated 3,960 pounds of explosives in a Mitsubishi Canter van on Feb. 14, 2005. Initial examinations suggested Syrian involvement and the involvement of Lebanese intelligence services, though Brammertz has not focused on that allegation since taking over the commission. The Brammertz report said Syrian cooperation "remains generally satisfactory."
The Security Council recently called for the presidential elections in Lebanon process without delay. The ascension of Hajj to the chief army post in Lebanon was seen as paving the way for Gen. Michel Suleiman to take the presidency in the long delayed election. Lebanon must amend its constitution to allow Suleiman to be the president because its constitution requires a two-year delay between top government posts.
Ban Ki-moon appointed Daniel Bellemare, a former Canadian prosecutor, to lead the Hariri examination. Brammertz is slated to take over the Yugoslavian tribunal from Carla del Ponte on Jan. 1.
