UN Hariri murder investigator meets with key council members

The 43-year-old Belgian prosecutor notably met with US ambassador John Bolton, the council president for February, and representatives of the four other veto-wielding permanent members: Britain, China, France and Russia. He was also scheduled to call on UN chief Kofi Annan later in the day.

Brammertz, who shunned the press, came to UN headquarters in New York to review progress in the enquiry since he took up his new duties January 23, succeeding German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis.

Bolton would not go into the specifics of his conversation with the Belgian prosecutor but described him as "very professional".

"I was quite impressed with his grasp of the course of the investigation and I assured him that the Security Council was fully behind him and I assured him that the United States was fully behind him," the US envoy said.

"He is aware of the urgency of the situation, the urgency in large measure occasioned by the deliberate obstruction of the crime scene of the Hariri assassination and the obstruction of justice that is going on," Bolton added.

A UN diplomat said the investigation was leading to an international court trial.

"It is clear that we are heading toward the establishment of an international court to try those who will be charged in this affair and the mandate of the enquiry panel could be broadened to include the series of attacks against anti-Syrian Lebanese figures since 2004," the diplomat said.

Mehlis said in a newspaper interview in December that the Syrian authorities "are responsible" for the Hariri killing.

A number of top Syrian officials have been interviewed in Vienna by UN investigators following an interim report which implicated Damascus in Hariri's killing and the commission also wants to question Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Security Council resolution 1644, adopted December 15, acknowledged Lebanon's request for an international tribunal to try the accused for the Hariri murder and for an international probe into a dozen bombings that targeted anti-Syrian critics over the past year.

But it merely authorized technical assistance to Lebanon from the UN inquiry commission.

It also asked Annan in consultation with the commission and Lebanon "to present recommendations to expand the mandate of the commission to include investigations of those other attacks," including a car bombing in Beirut that killed prominent lawmaker Gibran Tueni in December.

Last month, Annan asked Under-Secretary General for Legal Affairs Nicolas Michel to travel to Beirut to assist efforts to bring those responsible for the Hariri murder before an international tribunal.

Annan named Brammertz to head the probe on January 11, which is currently scheduled to end in mid-July.

Brammertz is a former deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in charge of the investigations division. Previously serving as Belgium's federal prosecutor, he has written extensively on global terrorism, organized crime and corruption.

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