Word: brammertz
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...10th released by the U.N. commission since it began its investigation in June 2005, but it was the first issued by the new chief investigator, Daniel Bellemare, a Canadian. Its contents were keenly awaited to see if he would be more forthcoming than his tight-lipped Belgian predecessor, Serge Brammertz. The original investigator, Detlev Mehlis, a German prosecutor, produced two sensational reports during his six-month tenure that read more like crime thrillers. A draft version of the first report in October 2005 even named four leading Syrian security officials as suspects. Mehlis also advised the Lebanese authorities to detain...
...Brammertz adopted a very different approach when he took over from Mehlis in December 2005. He shunned the media and released perfunctory reports that revealed little of the investigation's progress. He confirmed that the likely motive for Hariri's assassination was his political activities, centered on the former prime minister's deteriorating relations with the Syrian leadership in the last months of his life. And there appeared to be no drastic change of direction in the focus of the investigation as first conveyed by Mehlis. But there was no more naming of suspects, nor inclusion of witness statements that...
...Brammertz pursued his investigation, the faceless assassins stalking Lebanon claimed the lives of three more anti-Syrian Lebanese lawmakers as well as a Lebanese army general and Lebanon's top police investigator. Some Lebanese maintained that the Belgian prosecutor's reticent approach was creating a climate conducive to more murders, bomb attacks and an escalating political crisis...
...Brammertz' performance was a "total dereliction of duty," said Chibli Mallat, a prominent Lebanese law professor and former candidate for the Lebanese presidency. "No suspects, no one arrested, while the assassinations continue," he said. "Brammertz single-handedly destroyed the whole process...
...latest report, released by Bellemare, is even sparser in details than those of Brammertz. By pinning Hariri's murder on an unidentified "criminal network," Bellemare is merely confirming the obvious - that it was a crime and that more than one person was involved...