Lebanon/Assassination – Request to extend mandate of investigation commission – Letter from Lebanon

Letter dated 14 October 2005 from the Chargé d’affaires a.i. of the Permanent Mission of Lebanon to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

I have the honour to forward herewith a letter from Fuad Siniora, Prime Minister of Lebanon, addressed to you, concerning the request of the Government of Lebanon to extend the mandate of the United Nations International Independent Investigation Commission on the assassination of the late Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri until mid-December 2005, as indicated in Security Council resolution 1595 (2005) (see annex).

  I would be grateful if you would arrange for the present letter and its annex to be circulated as a document of the Security Council.

(Signed) Ibrahim Assaf 

Chargé d’affaires a.i.

Annex to the letter dated 14 October 2005 from the Chargé

d’affaires a.i. of the Permanent Mission of Lebanon to the

United Nations to the Secretary-General

  I would like to refer to Security Council resolution 1595 (2005), the letter of 29 March 2005 (A/59/757-S/2005/208) wherein the Government of Lebanon agreed to the establishment of the United Nations Independent Investigation Commission on the crime against the late Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and your letter of 9 September 2005 (S/2005/587) informing the President of the Security Council of the extension of the Commission’s mandate for a period of 40 days.

  With reference to our telephone conversation of last week and in line with the provisions in paragraphs 2 and 8 of resolution 1595 (2005), I would hereby like to convey to you the request of the Government of Lebanon to extend the mandate of the said Commission until mid-December 2005, as indicated in the above-mentioned resolution. This extension will enable the Commission to assist the competent Lebanese authorities in any further investigation of the various dimensions of the terrorist crime of 14 February 2005, based on the report of Judge Detlev Mehlis, and exploring possible follow-up measures to the findings and recommendations of this report in order to bring the perpetrators of the crime to justice.

  I would like to seize this opportunity to thank you for the professional work the Commission has been doing in Lebanon, and to commend the efforts of Judge Mehlis in that regard. The Government of Lebanon remains committed, in line with paragraph 3 of the above-mentioned resolution, to continue to extend its full cooperation in the discharge of the duties of the Commission according to the arrangements and modalities that you deem fit.

( Signed) Fuad Siniora

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