BEIRUT: U.N. Secretary General Ban
Ki-moon has sent a letter to the Lebanese government proposing three people as
possible replacements for Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s General Prosecutor
Daniel Bellemare, An-Nahar reported Saturday.
Quoting a Western diplomat, the
daily said three people were suggested. Bellemare's term ends on February 29,
at which point someone else will take the helm of the STL's prosecution. The
diplomat declined to specify the names or nationalities of the three proposed
successors.
The Beirut-based newspaper reminded
readers that Ban’s letter follows the secretary general’s decision earlier this
week to extend the mandate of the tribunal for three years. The STL general
prosecutor will be selected by Ban following consultations with the Lebanese
government.
Bellemare, who indicted four
Hezbollah members in June of last year for involvement in the 2005
assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, announced last December
that he would not seek to be reappointed as prosecutor for the U.N.-backed
court’s second mandate, which is expected to begin in March.
As the STL’s first prosecutor, he
has led the investigation into the killing of Hariri since 2009. The STL was
established in 2007.
The four indicted men remain at
large and Bellemare’s successor will take up the case against them when court
proceedings begin in absentia later this year.
Hezbollah has denied the STL's
allegations, saying that the four accused men, Mustafa Badreddine, Salim
al-Ayyash, Hasan Oneissy and Asad Sabra, are honorable members of the
resistance party and that they would never be surrendered to the court.
Hezbollah, along with its allies in the March 8 alliance, considers the court a
U.S.-Israeli project aimed at targeting the resistance and sowing strife in the
country.
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri, son of the
slain Rafik Hariri, has called on Hezbollah to hand over the men and cooperate
with the international tribunal.http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2012/Feb-25/164603-ban-proposes-three-candidates-for-replacement-of-bellemare-as-stl-prosecutor.ashx#axzz1nNx9Rqb0
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