Under Suspicion

A reason interview with German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis

Michael Young | January 31, 2008

(Page 2 of 3)

But let me hasten to add that my criticism is not personal. I'm the one who recommended Brammertz, among others, for the post of commissioner, so I must bear some responsibility for what happened afterward.

reason: Do you feel Brammertz's silence may have been due to his fear that being more open about the inquiry might have led to political conflict inside Lebanon?

Detlev Mehlis: I don't buy the argument. The assassination was always going to have political repercussions. It was a political crime. We had to accept this and it came with the territory. For many Lebanese we did too little; for the United Nations we did too much. Many at the U.N. would have preferred a softer approach. I understood this. The U.N. didn't want another problem.

reason: So, was there interference by the Secretary General's office in your work, particularly from then-U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan?

Detlev Mehlis: Annan made it clear to me that he did not want another trouble spot. I respected this but he also respected my point of view. Traditionally, there is tension between politics and justice, and I accepted that Annan did not want more problems because of the Hariri case. Relations are helped little when a prosecutor [like Brammertz] uses terms such as the "secrecy of the investigation." Yet Annan was always very supportive of my work and well-being. The U.N. did not interfere in my efforts and had no leverage over me, as I was not after a position in the organization. Even had the U.N. tried, there were investigators from 17 countries who might have thought differently, making this impossible.

reason: There was the famous case where, in your first report, one could access through the track changes command the edits in the initial draft of the document. It was clear that you had edited out the names of two very senior members of the Syrian leadership mentioned by a Syrian witness. Was leaving the track changes in intentional, so people could see which officials might have been implicated?

Detlev Mehlis: Not at all. When I prepared the original report, it was my impression that it would be confidential; that we would release to the public a version containing fewer details. However, in New York I learned that Annan wanted to make the report public. I intervened to say that, therefore, we needed to remove the names in question, because the persons mentioned were not suspects, but had merely been mentioned by a witness. Only the names of suspects and certain prominent witnesses were in the report. The U.N. press office made an unfortunate mistake in releasing the document with the track changes. It was definitely not intentional.

reason: Your reports, the fact that you asked the Lebanese authorities to arrest four pro-Syrian Lebanese intelligence chiefs, and your requests to interview Syrian officials and intelligence officers all showed whom you suspected of being involved in the crime. What was it like dealing with the Syrians, and how many times did you travel to Syria?

Detlev Mehlis: My interlocutors always treated me courteously and professionally, even in a friendly way. But they also made it clear to me that there were limits to their cooperation. I twice went to Syria: once for preliminary talks and once to interview witnesses.

reason: Before leaving, you had put in a request to interview Syrian President Bashar Assad as a witness. The Syrians were quite bothered by this. In the end you never spoke to President Assad. What happened?

Detlev Mehlis: I left before the process could go through and don't know what later happened. There were reports that Brammertz held a meeting with President Assad, but that is legally quite different than taking down a witness statement. In fact I took down the statements of many Lebanese politicians, who did not seem especially keen to put their signature on a document having legal repercussions. I also interviewed the Lebanese president, Emile Lahoud, who seemed to have no problem with this.

reason: Two of your key Syrian witnesses did not seem particularly reliable. One told a press conference in Damascus that his testimony was fraudulent; the other, a former intelligence officer, later became a suspect in Hariri's murder, and has made contradictory statements.

Detlev Mehlis: In such crimes you cannot be choosy about whom you are dealing with. What do you expect, white angels, coming out from the blue? Those two gave us a lot of information, which we could sometimes corroborate with information received elsewhere. In the end, the tribunal will determine their credibility, and ask why they agreed to sign their statements. Maybe the witnesses were there to discredit the investigation, but that can help us determine who wants to discredit the investigation.

reason: The four intelligence chiefs you asked the Lebanese authorities to arrest are still in jail. Their lawyers are saying that they are entitled to be set free, pending a trial. What are your thoughts about this?

Detlev Mehlis: That is one reason why it's important to accelerate the trial process, to protect the rights of the accused. At the same time, we did find sufficient evidence that all four generals were involved in the Hariri case. This was not my assessment alone, but also that of my commission's investigators and the Lebanese judiciary. Recently, I was accused in press reports in Beirut of having interviewed one of the suspects--Jamil al-Sayyed--without his lawyer. That is nonsense. But there has been a lot of media misinformation on my participation in the Hariri case in order to derail the investigation.

Comments

|1.31.08 @ 5:57PM|#

wow, am i the only one who found this interesting?

drink!

|1.31.08 @ 7:38PM|#

Nope. In addition, I thought that Detlev chap came across as intelligent, sincere, and an all-around professional.

DannyK|1.31.08 @ 8:23PM|#

Man, I was all ready to bust out the snark on Mr. Young and here he conducts a smart, well-organized interview.