UN Undeterred by Attack on Investigators in Lebanon

by Massoud A. Derhally


(Adds Nasrallah comment from 10th paragraph.)

Oct. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The United Nations tribunal investigating the killing of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri said it is undeterred by an attack on its investigators at a clinic in a southern suburb of Beirut.

Two investigators and their interpreter were “violently attacked” yesterday morning by “a large group of people” when they went to meet a doctor at a private women’s clinic, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon said in a statement late yesterday.

The Lebanese army rescued the three staff members, and they received medical attention, according to a statement from the prosecutor’s office at the Hague-based court.

The attack “is a deplorable attempt to obstruct justice,” the tribunal said in the statement. “Those who carried out this attack must know that violence will not deter the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, a court of law, from fulfilling its mandate.”

Tensions have risen in the country in anticipation of an indictment by the UN tribunal, which may implicate members of the militant Shiite Muslim Hezbollah movement, a member of U.S.- backed Prime Minister Saad Hariri’s national unity government.

Hariri supports the inquiry into his father’s assassination, while Hezbollah says the court was set up unconstitutionally, is politicized and biased, and should be abolished. A showdown over the issue could lead to violence, according to Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Center in Beirut.

Women Charged Clinic

A crowd of women charged the clinic and attacked the investigators, Iman Sharara, the doctor at the clinic, told local Lebanese television channels.

The visit was handled “in accordance with legal safeguards,” had been approved by the Lebanese authorities, and investigators were accompanied by members of the judicial police and the army, the court said.

Several items belonging to the tribunal staff were stolen during the attack and Lebanese authorities are investigating, the court said. Hezbollah has said it had nothing to do with the incident.

In a televised speech tonight Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah reiterated his attack on the tribunal saying it was biased and collecting information outside the realm of the investigation into the killing of Hariri and sharing it with Israel and the U.S.

“I call on every official and every citizen in Lebanon to boycott the investigators and not to cooperate with them,” Nasrallah said. “Continued cooperation with the investigators contributes to attacks on the resistance,” he said, referring to Hezbollah.

Hezbollah, classified by the U.S. and Israel as a terrorist organization, won popularity in Lebanon by helping force Israel’s army to withdraw from the country in 2000, ending an 18-year occupation. Lebanon has seen repeated episodes of sectarian strife since a 15-year civil war ended in 1990.

Massoud A. Derhally

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