Preparations suggest Hariri court will begin work on January 1

[Dry Ice]

'I don't think Bellemare will announce he is ready tomorrow'

By Michael Bluhm
Daily Star staff
Tuesday, August 19, 2008


BEIRUT: Preparations at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon are proceeding as if the prosecutor will take office and the tribunal will begin functioning on January 1 next year, even though the UN official managing the tribunal said he did not have any information about when UN chief Ban Ki-moon would officially inaugurate the court.

The mandate of the UN commission investigating the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri and other political violence here expires on December 31, and the politically explosive issue of the tribunal has lately revolved around when chief investigator Daniel Bellemare will take office as the tribunal's first prosecutor and submit indictments to pre-trial judges.

"I'm having to plan to be in a position to support [a functioning tribunal] from January 1," Robin Vincent, registrar of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, told The Daily Star on Monday.

Vincent, who acts as the manager of the tribunal, and his staff of 10 moved less than one month ago from the UN headquarters in New York into the former Dutch intelligence building in The Hague which will house the court, he added. But by the end of the year, Vincent should hire most of the roughly 180 nonjudicial personnel who will be responsible for the tribunal's security, witness-protection program, accounting, public relations and human resources, he said.

Bellemare, a Canadian judge, secured the approval of the UN Security Council for another six-month renewal of the investigating commission's mandate through the end of this year, but he has yet to give any signal when he will finish the probe.

Bellemare did not file a report on the status of the probe at the expiration of the previous mandate, and if he were to ask for another extension he would probably need to present a progress report within the next two months - but he has yet to mention any such plans to Vincent, who is in regular contact with Bellemare, Vincent said.

"If [Bellemare] were thinking of applying for an extension, he would be submitting a report sooner rather than later," Vincent added. The mandate "is due to run until December 31; whether or not he will apply for a further extension of that I don't know."

In theory Bellemare could also slide into his new role as prosecutor before the end of the mandate, but he has not given Vincent any such indication, and Vincent would need to accelerate work in The Hague markedly to meet an earlier deadline, he said.

"I don't think [Bellemare] is going to announce he's ready tomorrow," Vincent said. "I'd expect him to let me know."

For example, Vincent plans to complete the construction of the courtroom by next June, and speeding up the establishment of the tribunal would present a "challenge," he said. Renovations to the structure in The Hague should cost about $13 million, and in addition to that the UN has long estimated the tribunal's first year of operations would cost about $35 million.

In Bellemare's only report to the Security Council, he said he believed "political motivation" stood behind Hariri's killing and that a "criminal network" had carried out the February 14, 2005, attack and remained active. Many in the March 14 coalition, which has staunchly backed the court and pushed for its rapid establishment, have blamed Syria for Hariri's assassination and the string of political violence that has plagued Lebanon. Syrian President Bashar Assad has denied any involvement in Hariri's killing and has said Syria would not allow its citizens to appear before the tribunal, while some in Lebanon's Syrian-backed March 8 opposition have voiced concerns that the tribunal could be manipulated for political ends. The US, which led the drive to isolate Syria, has kicked in $14 million of the $60.3 million pledged for the tribunal.