UN Legal Counsel arrives in Lebanon to discuss tribunal over killing of former leader

The United Nations Legal Counsel arrived in Lebanon today at the start of a three-day visit to discuss the setting up of an international tribunal to look into last year’s killing of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others, a UN spokesman told reporters.

Nicolas Michel, who is also the Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs, will continue the ongoing discussions with the Lebanese authorities aimed at establishing the tribunal as called for by Security Council resolution 1664, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. The 15-member Council adopted the resolution in March.

The UN has been investigating the killings through the work of its International Independent Investigation Commission (IIIC), led by Serge Brammertz. Earlier this year the Council extended the investigation’s mandate through 15 June 2007.

Mr. Hariri and 22 others were killed on 14 February last year in a car bomb attack in the Lebanese capital Beirut.

In a detailed report to the Council in June on the IIIC’s work, Mr. Brammertz said the “fundamental building blocks for the investigation into the crime” were now largely understood “and provide the basis for investigative progress with regard to those who perpetrated the crime.”

The IIIC was set up in April 2005 after an earlier UN mission found Lebanon's own investigation seriously flawed and Syria primarily responsible for the political tension preceding Mr. Hariri's murder.