Belgian Nominated to Lead Hariri Probe

By NICK WADHAMS
The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 28, 2005; 1:12 PM

UNITED NATIONS -- U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has nominated a Belgian prosecutor to lead the next stage of a probe into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, U.N. officials and diplomats said Wednesday.

Serge Brammertz, a deputy prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, Netherlands, would replace Detlev Mehlis, the German prosecutor who concluded that high-ranking Syrian and Lebanese intelligence officials played a role in Hariri's Feb. 14 slaying in a car bombing that also killed 20 other people.

U.N. diplomats said Brammertz had accepted Annan's offer to take up the job and that the world body was waiting for the chief ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, to write a letter formally releasing him. They spoke on condition of anonymity because his appointment had not been made public.

U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said Annan had completed the selection process and would announce his choice on Jan. 11.

"He is satisfied there will be continuity in the leadership of the enquiry," Okabe said.

ICC prosecution spokesman Christian Palme confirmed that Brammertz had been asked to take the post but said he wanted time over the holidays to decide whether to accept. The job would bring him enormous scrutiny and could put his life in danger.

Mehlis received numerous death threats during his six-month tenure and had to travel with heavy security. On Wednesday, the Lebanese newspaper An-Nahar reported that the pro-Syrian group that claimed responsibility for killing its editor, Gibran Tueni, threatened to kill the next head of the Hariri probe. The statement said Mehlis was lucky to escape death.

"Mehlis was able to slip out of our hands a moment before it was too late when he chose to resign because he understood the message and realized that if he did not do that, his end would be wretched like the end of all traitors who betray Arabs and Islam," the newspaper cited the statement as saying.

Brammertz was not commenting on issues relating to the Hariri position since he had not yet been officially appointed to the job, Palme said.

Brammertz, who currently oversees the court's investigations division and is one of its most senior officials, met with Annan in New York on Dec. 15 and reports had circulated since then that he was the leading candidate to replace Mehlis. There was some fear that the United States, which opposes the ICC, might oppose, but Washington has not protested.

The decision not to announce the appointment until Jan. 11 may have to do with the court itself. The statute creating the International Criminal Court states that the prosecutors may not have any other professional occupation while working for it, and makes no mention of leaves of absence.

While the rule is unlikely to prevent Brammertz from taking the job in the Hariri probe, the ICC's member nations elected him to his post and it would be politically indelicate for him to leave without consulting with them. Palme said Brammertz and Ocampo were discussing his possible leave with those governments.

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Associated Press reporter Anthony Deutsch in The Hague, Netherlands contributed to this story.

© 2005 The Associated Press